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    Fortune Teller at the Mediaeval Fayre She offered up her linen bag to me, said pick a shell my lady and I’ll tell your fortune; my fingers skimmed scalloped edges the bold domes of limpets but settled on a smaller more fragile find – the wing of a...

      Of our times and tulips Squirrels have beheaded all my parrot tulips and the supermarket is out of chilli, also  tabasco sauce. At the zebra crossing an SUV hurls a diesel glazed puddle into my boots and the rain stings my eyes, breaches the seams...

      A Gift Morning’s cusp of summer in a cobalt breach the sun is a white coin lifted from the sea. Walking, going somewhere from old rifts, like a calliope, spun like fists on a hurricane stare, glassy arraignment loops a centred pain. (This happens...

      Genetics Yes, you gave us your elegant hands and capricious smile, but as I make my way to the chiropodist this morning, it’s your feet I’m thinking of and how in your later years they gave you constant trouble. I was still too young for our...

      Simulacrum after Jean Baudrillard Pursue the facsimile of the attendance sign; here you must join the line. People in uniform will inform you where to stand, how to sit, when to scream how to follow the rules. When you pass this initial test, you...

      Saving Face Corvus carone, carone, the carrion crow Emerge, from way beyond the pale, one day, clenched feet an amulet about your wrist. You’re eight, like us, you say, toy wilderness we occupy, a monster on your fist, outlandish night. No tinge...

      Elephantine carved from the tusk of my grandmother I am learning how to remember we follow the old paths traced through the bush that belongs and yet does not belong to us where we are born is where we pass through if I could, I would pull down...

      My dad is thinking geometrically, eyes closed; he waves his arms to describe how he can transform a circle into a square. Did you know a line has only one dimension? That means it takes up no space. Perhaps trigonometry can save us. You need two...

      wig they gave me the cold cap to stop my chemo hair falling out brain freeze for hours a tight band of nausea but still my hair fell out i swept up my gold and silver hairs washed them laid them out to dry in neat lines on an old multicoloured...

Man Eating Leeks Watercolour on ivory C. 1824–5   Today I make myself green ivories, Unfix a broken rib and blacken it With carbon, drip on water so it spreads, Mix egg wash watercolour pigments fit To reinforce the scenes. The creatures grow, Bone of my bone,...

Shell-like either – a conch found in hot white sand on the shoreline at Sanur Beach a Fibonacci whorl among morning offerings – left with reverence lapped by ripples – while bright boats with sails proclaiming Bintang Beer ferry tourists across the reef to the roll...

Solarpolar i am sun-shot / green-beamed / stem-steep / hands cupfuls of heartlines / conjuring water / my face light-dialled / hair wild / screaming beauty & i am root-retched / soiled-deep / dirt-dark / legs spindly – lost maplines / petering earth / my thirst...

      My Precious Holding your cooling hand, bedside, they said I had better take your wedding ring or it might get “disappeared” its fading ghost now a mere shadow on my finger. So it hangs with mine – twin markers round my neck – chained together to...

      Ulster Museum  After ‘The Supper at Emmaus’ by Caravaggio On the road to Belfast today, I failed to recognise my father. I saw a flamingo by the Tamnnamore turn off, but paid little regard as it took off, legs stretched out behind like a hyphen;...

        The Piano The last thing cleared from my Late parents’ house Was the piano. At half a tonne in weight It was like the anchor - This thing that kept us all Together; Without it, the tide came And carried us away.     Mark O'Connor...

      A Map of Old Battles They lie deep in a forest, wounds unseen, unhealed. Further back, an escarpment with dark scars. Visiting, perhaps you expected something tactile, something to hold, markers of exact terrain, key sites on paper or cowhide. Who...

The Only Time I See My Father Swim There’s a hiss as he eases himself in to the green pool, steam in his smoky hair. Fish flicker around his feet, his legs lift, quiver like flames in the mountain river. Water spills over the plank dam to trickle across the rocks...

      It’s Forbidden to Call it War It’s forbidden to call it war. We’re here to liberate you; ignore the glide bombs as they roar. Missiles across the sky still soar as tanks advance in a long queue, it’s forbidden to call it war. We’re not here to...