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      Coping strategies With the neon-splashed night at the window I counted each contraction down, obediently, as my mother had told me to do. Ninety-eight, ninety-seven… This instruction reminds me of my friend’s advice: if you’re ever in public and...

      You ask me why I put myself through that, as if I jumped out of a plane 14,000 feet of fear and longing. As if I were a camel pacing two-toed, unhindered into the eye of the needle. As if I plucked the thorn instead of the rose, wrist of scars no...

      The Circles on Your Ceiling You wake up (so you tell me) to the lurid gold of summer splashed like paint across your tea-brown walls; curlicues across your bed- room ceiling: complex, inter- locking circles (‘rings left by Goliath’s teacups upside...

      Fortuna rolls the dice in Tumahole Free State, South Africa I have never seen a baby so tiny outside a womb. You hold her jigsaw of bones in a blanket, afraid to scatter the pieces in case they’d sail like seeds onto the road. A dung beetle rolls...

      The Longhouse The Renault rocks left to right, waddles up an unmade road, squeezes through the trees. Now I see it - a low-slung, stocky, lengthy, extended longère and, at right angles, ancient barns remodelled with stone, glass, wood. My hosts...

      I'm looking through a lattice of magnolia  not yet ready to blow open its thousand furring buds— every year the same urgency—same innocence— on an anniversary serious enough for champagne and a room with mullioned windows—the view outside is a...

  Lesley Graham lives in Bordeaux where she is a lecturer at the university. She is originally from Scotland and started writing poetry relatively recently.

      Red Sky in the Morning Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight, Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning. Country proverb Our family does weddings. When Rosalie married, first time round, and the cars assembled for the drive, it was in fact a...

      Meeting a Fig Tree I know a fig tree walks in beauty singing a fair song as soon as my heart beats. She uses elevators & electric stairs. People are astonished by her actions, but she doesn't even bother to argue with them. She is very busy...

      Hermitage Halfway within the sheltering woods you found yourself. The hut is an egg, gate of emptiness, closed and open. The four walls: passion and joy, fire and silence. A touch of ashes, smell of paper, sound of shadows. Like God, the Guest,...

      A Jar of Starfish You may think it’s because there’s so little room, but I believe we are holding each other so we don’t forget the way water holds us. At first glance, you may be forgiven for thinking us Autumn leaves – a crisped selection of...

      Addressing Sylvia Plath’s Fan Club You will need four hundred items in the stew of her: cumin, lemon, colocynth, bitter apple, lime, broccoli to get the aftertaste she would want in your memory. Mix half the ingredients, the dry, dyed ingredients,...