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      Her Funeral Clouds spit on the coffin, wring oily rags, splash a woman, her violin cased in sunken purple. I wade with the others through the mud clench, she’s beyond now, until the weight of her. My eyes hide behind dark. Damp pallbearers lower...

      Sonnet And did she break your heart? A woman asks, perhaps imagining A fallen chalice scattering Fragments about the tiles, only discovered Days later in corners underfoot. But there was no suddenness More a growing sense of doom A shrivelling of...

      Bringing Pilates to Attention Four years in Knockaloe was a living inspiration for inventor Joseph Pilates. His self-contained exercise in mental- physical health spawned a method which he called Contrology — corrective drills grown within the...

      Save Me   At thirteen I am competing with James Joyce, encouraging pain, at the very least discomfort. See me fervently praying, waiting to receive the Communion host. My knees more than ache, then burn, I bless the wooden pew causing this...

      Slow Worm And here you are slid from the rain under my door, “s” -ing along the cool checks in the hallway. I’ve had slugs silvering the skirting, a hissing squirrel cornered by the stove, even a mouse that made his den next to the cat food… but...

Jade Prince hails from Essex but currently resides in Leeds. She has been published in PEN Transmissions and Poetry & Audience amongst many others, and currently holds a place with The Writing Squad.

      Ripening The earth cracks and we are left with the same shared moon. She peers through my lattice window and hides behind your city’s smoke. Have you ever caught her covertly climbing the ladder, the hoards below are distracted watching the...

    Money for Candles The neighbor is a devout woman. She bakes bread and lights candles, scolds the noisy children of others, and dresses in modest clothes. Everyone in the building fears her. They believe she can see through skin. Let someone lie or even...

      Does anybody want any money? I've got all this money lying around. Have you got anything you can do with it? I asked Josie but she doesn't want it. Klio says the extension is already paid for. Geoff has a job and wants to pay his way. Craig says...

    Love What fell between an abrupt shower and a sky’s attitude was your memory. In the small presence of wind under a tree, I stopped renovating your image, after the silence ploughed over, the days we spent in front of each other, agreeing that the...

      Ramadan Colleagues munching bap and burger thought Ramadan was that juicy winger, his scorching pace soon snaffled up by City. Giving stuff up, they say, is murder - and two weeks into Lent they bring a secret snack to work through sheer...

      BLACKBIRD IN THE EARLY MORNING   Sings at the top of the bare-branched tree an aubade to morning welcomes the light, early spring, season of nest-making. This melody is not for me but to attract a mate. I walk the dog under the dulcet notes and...

      Poseidon at the Spill as the tanker tore its throat against the shallow spine, as the village unravelled when the sea took fire; in a hi-vis flower of diesel light, he rose. finding his tongue tang-stained with oil he yanked his ankle-chain to its...

      Wood Anemone   Between the trees dust shifts, light fractures like a prism. A cathedral silence greens the air. The soil smells of damp books. I see them — paper-thin, spreading on the dark floor of the wood. Still as a shut door. Nothing...

      Fancy etymology for a vacant lot The French term terrain vague enfolds a plot of land I thought at first was vague, undefined and malleable. As a noun, this vague echoes on the edge of its meaning: perhaps a patch of earth evoking a wave, capable...

      sclerenchyma mornings I wake wary of abundance wondering why I’m still here and then I recall all the green leaves with their hiding birds and the slow triumph of ripening pods here lily stalks move like living things for this is what they are...