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      Angus anhinga in my hang-glider, my ambit, my angler, the lips’ full opposite. Hungus - two gulps. Sirloin tang for my hunger, stirling catch, my one choice. A stone thrown into a silent land, the arsenal of your arrival. The headlong clang of...

      Outpatient   Take a half-shower Sit at the edge of the bath, feet wet Shower head unscrewed, hose lying flaccid in the bath Belching out lukewarm water over overgrown toenails   Walk around the house bumping into things Giggle like a...

      Island Fiction I could murder a cuppa mutters a knitting voice, her claws purling patterns the Fair Isle way. The kettle whistles, the brew as warming as a jumper - outside gulls rock n' roll drunk on a burgundy sky. The winged ways gleam in those...

      The Opposite of Pygmalion She’s breaching the limits climbing the scaffolding hauling herself up poles rolling over the lip of the kick-board. My hands race like a card sharp trying to confuse the eye not wanting to let her off the plinth. I don’t...

      Gift Dark from four, because of the rawness I buy plain chicken and some chocolate, turn back the way I’ve come to the pavement shrine of himself beside an alcove where drunks piss, fumble the sandwich handing it to him, “Here, have this.” One...

      Bus Stop Etiquette We roll up piecemeal, shuffled rush-hour pack in all weathers; fix envious glares into underoccupied kerbcrawl cars blaring rock, pop, classical, duh-duh-duh dance and dumbass ads. It’s Britain so we queue; eyecontactless, heads...

      Snowdrift From solitude to servitude I went: a stepmother’s bane, to maid-of-all-work for grubby curmudgeons. dust     sweep     scrub     sleep How the chores call to me, a broom-brush song that bristles at my hearing’s edge. How grudgingly I...

      A Sudden Shaft of Light My demented mother who doesn’t know me anymore, looks up as I come into the room. Ach - there’s my wee darling Moyra she says, such love in her voice that everything falls away but love. The slate is clean, and I, new born...

      Lullaby for the Child I Will Never Have Sometimes, in my dreams, I sing to you of mice running up the clock, of four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. I love you too much for fledglings severed by magpies: I found a chick once – feathers...

      heal with careful fingers i fashion unraveling blood vessels into nets that haul life to the surface over and over again     Aaliyah Cassim is a twenty-one year old university student who enjoys writing poetry and...

      The View From the Ambulance is limited, by design.  Strapped securely the dislocation, the shabby franchise- ification of high street, signage blinking by, the discomfort: this wasn't here before – is dulled.  Everything looks old already, except...

      Gannets I drive from your apartment to pick up a friend of a friend from the train station, take them to Muriwai to see the gannets. It is a warm day but there’s a bite in the air. My passenger is dressed for winter. She removes her seatbelt on...

      Homing Pigeon From the high window ledge of the house next door, he looks down into our kitchen. Two days since he landed, and whether we dance to the radio or open a newspaper, whether we chatter about nothing or argue over whose turn to cook,...

      Next To You A cold, violet light at end of day; this season is ragged with wonders. A fine, black net of starless sky, the flight of geese, the song of the lapsing fire. The way you move, when I am next to you, you stranger in my loved- one’s...

      The Meeting A sprawling arena of hard clay, cut through on one side by the creek and spread with thistles. And I, alone at the centre of it. Then he’s there. Six feet of polished earth-brown, flat venom head swaying like a grass stem. We freeze,...

      A Reckoning Coming at the end of a year, a decade, ten years of trading prevarication, all prospects closing off as reality closes in, with half the globe on fire, the rest in floods, how can we reckon up accounts? We're overdrawn, our home...