by Helen Ivory | May 15, 2024 | Featured, Poetry
Things I did then that I hadn’t done before Asked the neighbours if they wanted anything in my online weekly shop and Bought yeast, flour, long-life milk and 70-per-cent-alcohol hand sanitiser and Cut my own hair, even the bits round the back I...
by Helen Ivory | May 12, 2024 | Featured, Poetry
Quiet, Elizabeth Elizabeth is hiding in the cupboard under the sink Small enough to fold between cream cleaner and floor polish Too big to keep elbows away from wire wool Knees away from the slick puddle of the U bend Nose away from the liquitab...
by Helen Ivory | May 10, 2024 | Featured, Poetry
Acts of Repair Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? (Tupac Shakur) You wouldn’t believe how quick they grew — Our babies were men now. Lifting bags of concrete they rebuilt cities, slab by slab, reinforcing cracks....
by Helen Ivory | May 9, 2024 | Featured, Poetry
The Scorpion and the Egg I’d asked for this not to be recorded; this failure on my part, to be a good parent; this failure over the egg, my handing him a scorpion instead, my thoughtlessness. How can I explain that my mind was elsewhere?...
by Helen Ivory | May 8, 2024 | Featured, Poetry
Monkey Mathematics A monkey grabs one nut here, one nut there, and two more over there. He counts them with care. One two three four nuts —what a bounty! He rubs his belly, opens the nutshells deli- cately and eats the seeds oh-so- slowly: four...
by Helen Ivory | May 7, 2024 | Featured, Poetry
Self-Portrait at 30 – VIII. Be reasonable I find six errors in the proofreading manual & the irony doesn’t tickle me. I am enraged by typos, poor formatting, missing commas. This is my Big Girl Job, the one I always wanted — editing...
