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Winter afternoon Charcoal darkness shades late afternoon, at the narrow edges of a chalk white snowfall. Beams slide from our single lamp through the pane onto soft-heaped mounds and frozen branches, turn what they touch to gold. Butter yellow. Crocus. Silence curls...

I Have Memorised a Series of Statistics About Drowning after Benjamin Gucciardi When the bus hits the tunnel and the sun disappears I remember how the greatest risk-factor for drowning is being near water; then being near it drunk; then being near it young or male...

      I really don’t care about butterflies after Kim Addonizio (with a line from Nabokov)     I don't really care about butterflies, especially when they land in poems except when a Red Admiral gets lost in the great grey fields of the...

The ash tree A superb winter sunrise backlights edges of cloud tinting sky above and bay below the palest blue, hints of gold glistening on the water. Beneath a faint sliver of rainbow a young ash, bold denier of dieback pushing through a broken wall wears a light...

    How To Remain Human This Year     We give a throwaway kiss to strangers, to see New Year in. We plant the seed with hope it will grow, form fruit, to feed us. We put a pound in the tin or a direct debit for life. We dispense sympathy,...

CANNIBALISE THE CORRUPTION, I GUESS Ok? Everyone's dying. You're not special. You've a Tree in your stomach, Splitting the roof of your mouth, Leaves curled around teeth, and your skull Cracking like an ancient castle? Nothing I haven't seen before. Had three people...

      Lockdown       Seven turkey vultures with grasping fingers, their feathers splayed wide along a black fence, the day after I veer around yellow tape and red lights, the news of children murdered once again, every ten days more death...

      Dead of Winter   Someday I’ll be gray and not white. Just like blonde was prettier on the playground, white is the bride of winter. Gray makes the dead sick. If my inner child is kidnapped, I’ll freeze my nightmares to that ole pole. I don’t...

    A Rumination   With ginger chai, lounged in the balcony, Revisiting the years she and her spouse Endeavoured for a better, self-owned house, She takes a breath of content, finally. But why is there no lustre in her eyes? Nostalgia? This cannot be...

      Questions     We were always in the car that year the price of having a nice house in a nice area get in get in it’s time to go where are we going our friends the supermarket the cinema the mall just for a drive between banks of jaded...

      Stuffed Monkey from Jane Grigson’s English Food It’s impossible to foretell what will provoke tears, the sort that well up and tip over while you hold onto the kitchen sink waiting for them to subside. It could be a bunch of keys, so many of them...

    Mean sister We are stuck in our own words, not hearing each other. Sixty-somethings, we may as well be six, throwing sticks down the beck or poking dolls eyes out of their sockets, scribbling on their perfect faces. We are well rehearsed, know our cues,...

      The Day Of Un-Visitation ..there is a day of visitation given to all... Robert Barclay of Ury, 1678 I heard a calm, clear voice. But not with my ears. Not my outward ears. It wasn't madness. For a moment I was Lady Julian. For a moment I was...

        How the Wych-elm Once Reached tall as the absentee house. How the girl moored her hands and heart     charmed by riven bark.   How its name was thrilling     frightening as the adults     disguised witches. How the woman returns...

      Lovely Feet I dream I’m at the hospital massaging your feet, your tiny feet that I have freed from their tight white stockings and covered in aromatic oils, as your lover lies beside you stroking your lioness head which turns and gently purrs at...

      Rough Tor When fog falls over Rough Tor, the world creaks on the end of a string, its veils too flimsy, dancing like a threadbare kite on the wind, a farm here, there the trembling memories of a hill, the day coated all in white, its bright...

      Snow’s Reset The roofs blend with the snow-laden clouds, borders softened so it’s only memory that differentiates my space from my neighbour’s. The wet smell confuses pets whose footprints meander over territorial edges, leave crazed patterns like...