Hello

      Limbo We have our eyes on the chairs, ready for when the music stops. Nobody wants to be in the space where a seat had been before. The limbo stick goes lower again. Those left in, contort their spines to hover in the gap, avoid collapse. I cover...

Sue Proffitt lives by the coast in South Devon, UK. She has an M.A. in Creative Writing and has been published in a number of magazines, anthologies and competitions. She has two poetry collections published:   Open After Dark (Oversteps, 2017) and  The Lock-Picker...

      Fuglafjørður I This curved town exhales fishy breath gusted in tons from berthed trawlers gashing the quay the north hauled to land groceries shopped into cars with studded tyres grinding their knuckles home lit by Christmas lights rigging a...

      Let it be okay that it took me a while to get here If not better then equally fine to be the goldfinch who took weeks to even notice the weirdly suckered perspex shape. A phase of hover and flee then shy balance on the lip, choosing hollow still...

      Mountain Rescue How do we pull ourselves back when we’ve nothing to hold on to? Find a way clear or stay? Wait. Song will arrive again from scrub, from burn, from leaf. We feel the weight of hope, are shocked to life by the rawness of...

      How to not exist Allow yourself to be elbowed aside become a non-person an avoider of lingering looks Ask how can I best be ignored? foster a gnawing sorrow howling complaints to imaginary friends In portraits your eyes should be nebulous stare at...

      I Want to Become a weasel, in a sleeky, twisty body, all eyes and teeth like a deadly zip. I would have become a badger in preference, but they have been having a bad time around here, through no fault of their own, shot for being badgers. So...

      Secret Society I joined a secret society advertised in the back pages of a magazine. I forget which, but I found it nestled in 8pt font and fancy border between time share apartments in Lanzarote and the commemorative plates. Yours for just three...

      dance dance revolution long weekend ← or ← perhaps ↑ summer holiday → from the back of someone’s car boot ↑ the strange → sweated plastic all pink and blue and folded → arrows stacked and pointing towards themselves↓ like meeting for the first...

      Ripe We’re drinking wine in your kitchen, months before the hot oil of my concern begins to spit. I’m telling a story with both hands while you chop garlic, drain another glass. Over dinner we make up theories for the new pint glass squatting in...

      Skin deep You notice the crepe of your neck and belly first. This skin you bake in the sun. At least your stomach hides it’s nudity most of the time. You start using factor fifty face cream and tell yourself you don’t mind the deep crease between...

      Watching the ‘Strictly’ Results Show on a Sunday night   Knowing what we know about the pain of the world, who wins and who loses might feel like a betrayal. Too many sequins, too much glitter, a vacuous distraction          and yet           ...

      Wind Come my love with me alone to inhabit those years again Sean Hewitt, Night Ballad Oh walk with me up the slippery lane when the frost has turned to ice. The wren in the hedge may catch our eye as if flits from twig to twig as it follows us....

      Finding the hill again Wear a coat, you’ll pass through light rain at the wood-edge under Helmeth. Sing loudly, so the snakes can hear you. There’ll be birdcall, leaf-mould, path-fall to the brook. You’ll splash the ford and settle to the slope....

      Nature Is Healing “If humans are the virus, pandemic is the cure.” I think capitalism is the virus. We humans are still here. - Naomi Klein It constructs membranes between its most powerful organs, filters pathogens hidden in boats. It despatches...

      When I read my poem about stretch marks you said it was a funny thing to write about. I felt a flare, low down, an orange hazed ember you’d have to blow into life. Because they’re not very nice to look at you said. The flame caught, scorched...