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      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,...

    Sonnet for My Fat Took my pain, buried it in buttercream. Unboxed, licked off the top, Masticated each grain into saline, let my bloodstream drip-feed membranes their acid-fat. In bed, I dream of fingers probing pleats of grief tissue. They peel back the...

        Mymona is a Bengali-British writer and teacher based in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her writing has been featured in the Ilkley Literature Festival and longlisted for the Butchers’ Dog. She’s a core member of the collective Brown Girls Write and...

    Let that love show When all is quiet save for the silky rustling of an autumn breeze let that love show. When your patience is darkness-dappled and as weary as an exhausted scholar let that love show. When you’re disappointed to learn that trestle...

    Red Kite Mrs. Hooping helped with my coursework since Mr. Smith lived on pizza boxes. Found rocking a dead pigeon on the cardboard, now he's back at his mum's, auditioning to be a postman. Witnessed a Red Kite in my underwear drawer from our session in...

      I want to wake up like they do in films   no puffy eyes that blink to find the dawn foreclosed again behind those wretched blinds you bought but sunlight streaming in through impractically curtainless windows; my skin, made-up in golden...

      Poem for my Father Come away Simon, away to the woods with us. Leave your shoes by the stairs and follow our feet to the bridge. The dog is scared of the burn so won’t bite your fingers when you cross. We can sleep in the treehouse and wait for...

    In My Hand I Hold Two Truths I make broth, feel odd wiping it off your face moments after swiping through bodies, preferences, dates. Sunset-orange forget-me-nots mar the napkin cloth I dab along your stubbled jaw. If forget-me-nots bloomed blood orange....

      Paysage Moralisé There's more to this three-foot square: lilac vetch & vermilion field-poppies, some sort of crucifer spreading its yellow legs for an evening damp enough to be hot; opposite, big-box retail, facing away to heavens dreamt...

      Saint Brendan Brown limpets with tonsured heads creeping over the fish-stink isle, spongy underfoot, seaweed for grass. At the head, fire-crowned Brendan his feet licked by waves, knows tidings odd. Is it word from God, or knowing the wrinkled sea...

      A Taste of Apocalypse Such stillness in the air. The attic window is a cupped ear set to alert the house to subtle shifts in atmosphere: auguries; signs; any tiny notice of cataclysmic change. All it amplifies today is a lone jay’s irritated...

      What Part of Me? Sun demands a front row seat above the graveyard through the trees when my mother’s placed in soil, surrounded by her friends’ small talk – She must have sent the rays for us. Women in their Sunday best, men in greying suits...