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      The Elixir It began with nectar weeping from your tear ducts. Your mother shone like a martyr. It dripped from your nostrils – the ambrose became mixed with the stink of the house. It oozed from your ears, hardened. Your father called you...

      Sign  I can visualise the street sign— its unfamiliar name— but not your face. Not really— flecks of shooting star shone in your hair then. I remember that but a friend tells me you are bald now. Standing on that corner: sage, bay leaf, baklava,...

      Llorona, Llorona Midnight is blurry like a rapid photograph Blinding streaks of light slamming through my skull and vibrating Zzzzzzz Zzzzzz Zzzzzzz There are snakes writhing around my brain This flesh is the optimal hunting ground, so full of...

      Never to the Ball undressing herself continually & dirty in her habits* Bruises buttoned down to my naval. My bust goose- pimple decorations, arms embroidered with a tattoo-sleeve. Nurses throw blankets over me, protect my immodesty, brand me...

      Early-stage menopausal psychosis, Nyhavn hotel room, 5 October 2019 There’s a red eye / in the corner of the ceiling / yesterday it was a smoke detector / today it’s pretending to look elsewhere / seeking out fire The stilettos by the bed listen /...

      Neşûştî / Unwashed unbutton my spine towards the shitty full sounds of istanbul throw my discs at the drunkard as the imam punctures our howls into the mosque lucid green walls may he hang us let us be examples is there anyone who loves like us?...

      Question Mark I live in Question Mark. It’s at the end of the sentence. The road to get here has a sharp bend. It’s not easy to guess what folk who live here think. There’s always a slight doubt. The town itself has a querulous nature; people are...

      Dry January I. to be like the box turtle, constantly contained in rigid carapace, opened and closed at will, always at home. to be like the lawnmower run till empty at end of season, no fuel gelling in brittle lines, awaiting fresh gas in spring....

      Superpower You’d imagine they’d make more of it, that feathered superpower of theirs, leaping across this planet ripe with air. Take the wren: there she hops, perpetually earthed in topsoil and grubs, happiest hidden behind a rock. The sex-crazed...

  An Elegy for a Stinking Pigeon I jump at a thud against my window, but nobody’s there. I look into the courtyard and glare, see nothing, until My sight falls upon the pigeon, dead as a dead pigeon, The corpse nestled into the leaves to hide from the wind....

Hysteria say you’re on stage or in Tesco buying tinned fish for the dog or it’s a dream in which you’re arguing with your mother and your womb starts moving about your body like it’s got a mind of its own the Ancient Greeks called it wandering but a better word might...

  The day the soldiers come they’ll give you twenty minutes to pack. Think now what you’ll need without this place you call home. And remember the woman too stunned by those uniformed men, who smoked and laughed in her kitchen, to use that precious time. She sat...

  Chalice You are invited to the special dinner where I’m turning turning the blood on the costume a birthmark shaped like a question on your lips there is a wasp an asp in my milk you would have me fail.   Trelawney has been shortlisted and commended in the...

You Eat a Moon as a Metaphor for Pain Here’s what’s going to happen: the moon is going to fall out of the sky and land in the basketball court in front of the apartment where your dad died. You are going to swallow it. Here’s what you are going to do: be buried under...