Hello

      The Kelpie Around midnight, the hour when pain reasserts its dominance, a voice behind the curtain screening my bed from the next patient’s: an intonation penetrating abstract thoughts of distance, time-lapse; tempered by the Haar, the briny...

      Us and Them They've mended the park fence again, patched it over with the usual ugly metalwork, like a riot barricade. That'll keep them out - the delinquents, the ne'er-do-wells, who break in and sit on the grass in the dark and watch the moon,...

      Return Across the barren land where blood once played its savage Holi, the fearless migratory birds have returned again. In the melancholy blue sky their wings beat with a message of arrival. Blooming flowers fell in the middle of the day— they...

      Examining clots It wobbles slightly, red wine jelly. I peer at it, nose close enough to smell the iron, the scent of coagulant, inhaling through slightly parted lips I imagine I can taste it, how everything tasted metallic, like monkey bar poles...

      Kamila Seen as she’d hung her cranial lantern from the roof of her step-father’s garden shed, the parabolic formula was skipped; like two calves, we followed the fence to the end of the foot-ball pitch. Beneath their sprinklers, we kissed on our...

      Common Ground Behind the block, the night tears in scrub-calls. Fox kill scores the morning, ripped by prints in muck. There's a form for this, a number to call, an action plan, a statement on how the city manages its wild, what to do when it...

      Manchester Piccadilly ➡ Wolverhampton Stepping into the opposing seat I smile, and the look I receive Makes me feel the antisocial one. With oh so many missed connections It seems that somewhere, somewhen, somehow Something has gone horribly...

      Hands Said To Head Hands said to Head look what you’ve made me do it’s not me, Head said, talk to Heart, that guy’s sick, Heart said whoa buddy, I take cues from Gut, whence all appetites bloom Gut growled, said nothing. Head said rumor is Gut’s...

      A Cry Female singing constitutes a 'forbidden act' (ḥarām), punishable under Article 638 of the Islamic Penal Code. When I was younger I used to sing. In private. Now whenever I open my mouth, it's a cry for all the lives in which I didn't or will...

      Cat Swarm This is what happens when she sits alone in her dining room, eating smoked trout and canned sardines. Twelve cats who are molting arrive as a sweet surprise. They smell the flavor and here they are. Now there’s cat fur everywhere. It...

      One For The Crow A Tuesday morning in November out on the street taking in the bins. As a flight of crows flashed past the street lights went out. My neighbour, very good at counting, said it was a coincidence, but it looked as if the crows put...

      Becoming Hedgehog (i) Noises are louder now: the kesh of tyres on tarmac slicked with leaves. Rain’s drumming thunder. My other self pulls at me, pricks from inside. Limbs compress, ribs tighten around starved lungs. I furl; I shrink, a leaf about...

      My Brother Teaches Me How To Open And Close A Door When you’ve used one handle to open the door, use the other handle to close it. That way the draft from the open window won’t whip it closed and wake everyone up. Even now he still teaches me –...

      Notes after a walk: a tree that had caught its own fallen limb She hadn’t lost a child but if she had she imagined it would be like that. To hear footsteps running up behind you, and to turn around and no one there. To see a crow gliding under the...

      Death of an autistic war child I was born on the sleeves of an immigrant father whispered God into my ear My tears were folded in muslin Stars stayed in drone-moan sky I was a difficult birth early as the Thrush Freckled as the bullet ridden...

      Sarsaparilla Road travels through swamps and reeds, over a black water creek and a narrow bridge, past the swift river with all of its snags and eddies, through the winding gorge of slippery-back slopes, scarps of limestone and galloping gorse to...