Hello

      Why don’t you eat pork?    If you don’t believe in God, my friend says,  why don’t you eat pork? I have no answer for her. I have only the blue-tacked mezuzah stuck to the doorway of my bedroom, the dried wax still wedged in stubborn clots ...

      Undertow   On my phone a newsreel shows a car boot lifting just above the flood. Tail lights like eyes caught in a comic gasp, while its body, like the carriageway, lies under sixty million litres of last night’s rain. Walking through town we...

      Summer’s End Today I tipped the packet of coffee into the cafetiere instead of the tin. Caught myself in time, didn’t pour water in. I’ve started to write notes to myself: Shut bathroom window. Lock back door. Yesterday at the bank I couldn’t...

      Summers in black Who’s idea was it? I think his, as I’d started wearing everything from Oxfam. Among my finds collarless shirts. There was I and my clique, ourselves fearfully fresh, seeking out lived-in things, clothing with more history than us....

      Going down to do lights and curtains to fool any burglars Twilight: one after another security lights click on illuminating pathways, steps, empty front lawns, triggered by my benign progress, then, disappointed, click off. The sky is a layer cake...

      Free Range My thoughts are skittish, peck at whatever they find. I flick each whitewash flake into the bin. Shadows on the walls are darkened rooms in which I lose myself, daily: if I say that I look for this at the edge of every brightness would...

      A bit OCD Floors are unvacuumed. Spices remain un-alphabetised. I bless the spaces between the furniture to keep everyone safe. Seven. I do not arrive exactly on time. Margins can keep their default size. I would like you to promise me this isn’t...

      Nostalgia as Yogi Bear Ruminates through you for something tasty, prizes of the Jellystone mind. Lifts a memory from the pic-a-nic basket of your past and sniffs it excitedly. He lies about the freshness of the morsel. Exaggerates its taste. Hey...

      I’m just an ordinary dryad After Anna Saunders not like fancy Eurydice   with her sun god father keep things simple   I say   I don’t have her dilemmas full moon   in new dark   rising to light skin and bark together woodbine up hazel shoots in...

      The Poem of the Sock after Martin Stannard The poem of the mask disguises meaning. The poem of the diet lost seven words. The poem of the snowman melted. The poem of the invisible man                   . The poem of the ventilator needs to...

      DayGlo after Ecclesiasticus 44.1 Let us now praise hi-vis men who gather together round a pothole, filling the gap with their sticky black remedy. Honour the yellow-gilet WPC who knows how to listen, called to a bus stop just in time by a lost...

      Out of Place I lie back, arch my throat, pretend to relax.  Contemplate ceiling tiles, and women who do this weekly for pleasure.  A basin strangles me. The palm of a hand realigns my head: this is how the ironing board feels when you dance with...

      It Might Never Happen This is not you, but someone soaked in fake Brut coming at me in a gesture of fake generosity. For goodness sake, I only want a quiet life, it’s no crime not to be a gregarious joiner. Ultra-polite, ultra-wary, I don’t answer...

      Bus Pass Your face was on a bus pass, your hair falling around your face like a curly straw, pressed in a puddle between the Queen's old face and an Aldi receipt for slippers and chicken. I sit at the stop we used to wait at for the bus to pick us...

      At Casa Diablo: Portland's World Infamous Vegan Strip Club I owned a g-string like this, the back connected by a rhinestone butterfly. Starved myself at school to save my dinner money, bought it from Poundland. Prized, peeping above my gym shorts...

      There’s The Big Things The ash that screams into the night, the lake that dries, the child amongst the rubble, the heat, the fire, the lack of books, the men who’ve clearly lost their minds. And then there’s the small. The glass that smashes on...