Hello

      Does it hurt? You were lying when you said it wouldn’t – the measles vaccine, the own brand tampon, rows of dead jellyfish on Dyffryn beach. Leaving that place to come home each summer, leaving home at the end of that summer and never coming back....

      In a moment of absence The road whispers in a language not heard these seventy years the sea eats only its pebbles and can be heard calling its kinfolk who listen can listen now the sea can be heard and all the candy floss falls strangely silent...

      Back to Work This morning I made eye contact with myself for the entirety of a 48-minute video interview. My manager asked me where I see myself in five years’ time. My Mum says I am careless. I forget to switch off the hob, walk around with my...

      ’Twas a long summer of thin air after Vera Iliatova’s ‘Cruel Month’ (2010) Of a drier Sahara. Of the sun living late into the nights; waking before dawn. Of cattledeaths and heatstrokes. Of brown cities in a gas chamber. Of distant, trailing...

      At Home with Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy White lilies wilt in the window of number four Park Road. A paper lamp’s stranded in space. No one’s ever in. On my way home from school I invent owners: glamourous Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy from the...

      The Next Day I talk to pepper seedlings in their earthen pots, water their soil with gathered rain, tell them of the hope in their beginning I am the dark morning, edged with light. They tell me in Spanish of their home, talk of cool verandas and...

      clutch you catch her in the night a pale moon asking you her name in your sleep your eyes wander and she pinches you she cleanses old fires no need for a past to speak of she's got some lipstick on her tooth or is that your blood? it's 50/50 she's...

      Eight days The kneewoman comes to lift him from the safety of his sac into the coffin we made to keep his sleeping form. I nurse him two days after the milk comes in. A week later I walk in gannet shoes, feet silenced by their leather, his jaw...

      Rosemary Tonks Returns Home from a Health Hydro She knows the house has been alone, fires unlit, switches unclicked, fuck you, she spits, I had to pay for company. Thinks of it as stage-left, hangs her mackintosh on the walnut stand Mother hated,...

      And I Don’t Know Why Somehow I’ve ended up here and I don’t know why I’ve ended up here but I’ve ended up here. Somehow I met you and I know how that was meeting you. I crossed the border that night you kissed me. And somehow I’ve ended up here....

      Moon mother The moon has my mother’s face and the smile she gave when I swam into her arms one February night. She speaks my name cheerfully down the phone. No hint of the time passed since we last spoke. I will try not to count the days since my...

      During Lockdown Wood Chip Decided To Speak Can’t you see the splendour in my devotion? The satisfaction of ripped corners. Your delight in my demise won’t bring it closer. I am over-painted. You will breathe my dust. My name will trip on your...

      Where We Begin Dandelions lose their lion heads weeds grow up to my ribs, petrified vines cling to last year's bamboo. Three planets in our morning sky, my breath burns. Things we barely understand derelict hauntings, satellite showers and a month...

      Hawthorn The gangrene smell is gone by the time the berries grow, and I am tempted to cut red branches and arrange them in jam jars throughout the house, too full of sour roasting fruit to remember the warning I heeded in May. I start to wear...

    Back to Normal He unfurled for nine months like paper folded more than eight times over, springing outwards in his eagerness, and this morning parts of him were birthed again.   MRI round three and it’s knockout, brain scans showing water before it...

    We spend a slow morning At this hour, the air is wind unstilled by the April sun. The mynahs are on errands – I hear less song more wing. I am warmed by the habitual honey lemon and beside me the dog is snoring. At this hour, the room is a cup and...