Hello

      Martin Luther King's on tour in the UK to repeat the same speech, you've heard but never remembered word for word. And why should you? I have a dream is painted onto enough t-shirts and baseball caps for you to get the gist.   School...

      It didn’t make me  a woman         darkened     school skirt pleats  the pungent smell of loss            this initiation  a twelve year olds guide to becoming ashamed         it didn’t make me  weak   they did     at night   on push-bikes  ...

      Street-preacher She looks at me with that fearsome oil-sheen in her eyes, the weighty conviction of milk-heavy gaze and breasts, telling me (the spittle-flecked words like Words made flesh) of her Father, how he is unseen, felt unstirring in the...

      Dream State Covers tight as clingfilm. Tell them you fell headfirst, steadied yourself, sucked out what was left in your throat, coughed that creamy polyethylene onto the pillow. Eyeballs infused with miniature blue irises plunge into the well....

      Widows Walk Evenings she puts on her second-best hat skewered with a tortoise shell pin, buttons up her heart in a mauve mohair coat sallies forth to pick a bone with the moon. On the red-leaded step she scans the stars imagines them white sparks...

      You Call This Summer More like a chicken bone tossed to a pigeon. More like a half-portion of peanut butter slicked in the jar we never throw out. I pedal through birds in Tommy Thompson, all strong enough to fly south soon – if I check the water...

      My Heaven is Inside My Body My heaven is inside my body, my heaven is a great many, like stars in the night sky, with silver towers, huge edifices that look like sapphires, golden palaces, gardens of crystal. My body is bigger than the universe,...

      Play Partner It is never easy, spotting the red flags, amidst the intense joy, and very high highs of exploring a new partner. A mind is filled with thoughts. Like a seesaw, it tips Left, right, left, right Stay, go, stay, go. Go. You know what...

      Wile E. Coyote Pauses for Thought All these unthinking technocratic years shooting myself from giant rubber bands and pawing vitamins –the kind that build your limbs into flexible hillsides– down my ravenous throat and here I still am, a blurring...

    Invitation The flamingoes are waiting, poised pink rippling across the water. Bubbles rise around my feet disturbing frogs and fish. I balance on one leg to show that I am good enough to be a bird. Hands on hips, I flex my elbows, lower my shoulders,...

      Ascent of the Blessed After Hieronymus Bosch Hovering a hundred feet over an ambulance in the starless dark, they congregate. Below: a machine frantic to restart my heart. My silver cord stretches, doesn’t quite snap. I look down on the mad...

      In a Time of Crisis Not all the small things you can do can save the world. Never say “It couldn’t happen here!” It could. Put on your best face for the future and take heart. Rescue those you can and leave the rest – the boat has only so much...

      Flying to Reykjavik I've been here hours. Sharing air with a factory of lawyers, a dead-eyed clerk, a bored, squinting judge and you. Stacks of files, a new party wall, divide us. In this windowless box excess words are trying to escape. They...