Hello

      Pandemic The windscreen’s dusty, I forgot to turn off the lights and now the car won’t start. I won’t I assure the man by phone try to hug you when you come. My mother comes forward, I take a few steps back. She cuts the fish and chips in half...

      In My Dream You are Not Cold I’m not shrouded in a blanket of smog as the first of the winter’s heavy pollution hits the city schools don’t shut and there are no warnings for pregnant women (in my dream, there aren’t refineries and power plants to...

      Postcard from the Spring The place I write from Is small and quiet Minor key. It is a world of infinite beauty Copious possibility Mute exuberance. It is not me, but part of me, The words appear unhappy Crying for joy. I want to illustrate a world...

      Winter Weathers Rain, persistent rain, and the last leaves falling. Voices twittered feebly. What anxious shadows blue tits seemed then, fluttering through the bare trees’ foodbanks of branches. How I wished a luminous green bee-eater,...

      The Romance Languages My mother is learning French in stumbling little phrases. Bonjour, Julien. Bonsoir. Who is Julien? Merci, Julien. Salut, Julien. Bonne nuit. I imagine a man dressed all in blue, drinking a glass of Badoit. ~Bonjour~, Julien,...

      The Passenger Via        hand to hand and hand to mouth, they pass a line invisible. Via        blast of air, puff of smoke, handshake, warm embrace, the tourist shares a secret, without telling us. Via        soft-soled tread in airport lounge,...

      Yeah that place is a dump Tastes like poverty: wide roads, no one with fuel to ride them. Casinos and bingo- coins like wishbones, dream of swimming in them. Even here, shiny leaflets and theatre lights, the floor cries dust balls, DIY people for...

      River Teviot, Borders, 2020 The Bridge Guest House is peeled open, emulsioned walls still hung with summer landscapes, boys fishing, bedroom doors politely closed against the swell that excavates my sleep, unearths the time our neighbourhood was...

      Capital ‘A’ Arches to begin: a gate, open to possibilities: a tree, sea, person, storm, war, religion, a nameless rose, as yet, unclaimed by labels. Are not divided by ‘The’.     Lesley Burt has been writing poetry for about twenty...

        WHEN an attic becomes garret                                           SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 and we move away the furthest we can   from street life coughs and kisses handshakes, smiles of love, in love   and fear makes us shrink...

      Besançon : October 1991 Motorways in France stripped to their flesh of cars, of trucks with names of families who run small to medium fruit and veg companies near the Swiss border. France is mine, though - I'm almost sleeping, I know - France is...

      A Field Guide of Our Skin This invisible body is a lithe sacrament of flora, bluebell petals reel dizzily from our thick drench of pores, lilac deaths reek in our morning peeling. This ill-lit musculature of fungus is in a state of grace,...

      Tzedaka box On Friday nights I slipped a coin through the thin lips of the blue box. It was satisfying to hear it clatter ; I could feed the tin but not myself.     Sally Michaelson is a recently retired Conference Interpreter living in...

      Today everything is on fire & it’s dangerous the wind claws crimson back & forth running across grass trees catch leaves ember & cinders *** I pray please rain save some green there’s a grasshopper poised for flight at the bottom of...

      Where you took me I had never cut my fingernails; would only retouch occasional casualties – cracks on thumbs, hooks on index fingers, too long witch-like pinkies. Not once did I sit down with a pair of tiny curved scissors to trim down all ten....

      Cold Cream If there’s a record for the consumption of celluloid, you’ve made it a life goal to break and, of course, there is a record for everything on the planet from smallest fish consumed by a tiger to most daffodils snorted by a Catholic...

      what is missing is touch — is cotton to wool, sheer to slub is holding hands is hug — forms moulding each to each, body to body rise to hollow what is missing is skin warm against cool, is the cheek-scuff of familiar stubble is rough sunbrown...