Hello

      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...

      A tour of Dachau concentration camp Our tour guide knows all this – it is embedded in him it seems. I watch his face, when he’s asked a question. I see his pause, as if he is checking himself for accuracy before speaking. I notice how he wears the...

      International Swimming Pool Rules 1. No ducking, bombing or diving, unless on command from the Pentagon. 2. Lifeguards are there to guard. Please obey their orders respectfully and promptly. The guns are (mostly) only there for show. 3. Maximum...

      A few things cunning women do “…the virtue of word, herb, & stone: which is used by unlawful charms, without natural causes.” – King James VI & I, Daemonologie Accessorise dirt-scuffed jeans with bramble-stain lips – three hares away from...

      In the shower with Gerard Manley Hopkins Bless me father for I have sinned again Rejoice in soapy foam-fleece fountain furled For I have lied and cursed and fucked with men Flashing quenching sing-shower curtain-curled In hurting self and friend...

      A Factory of Feelings Your biog is your own, wash it with as many adjectives. Entitlement and empathy are opposites. Dissimulation is elementary to past lovers, like dissemble to ex bosses. Facebook and Twitter are placeboes for amour proper....