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      A Mawkish Ode to Murder She was night at its blackest heart It’d be stupid not to, right? It began with slaying metaphors, that gifted an initial rush like blood orange splatter in the opening frames of a thriller. They were in birth removed from...

      Gold A shower of gold? Old Zeus? That’s the village gossip except I saw her legs wide to the sun. Well, we’ve all been there, haven’t we, girls? And if a passing goatherd happened to linger in a jangle of leaping bells what do you expect? It was...

      Hello, I’ve crafted myself a god from the kind of modelling clay you fire in your kitchen oven. I can lift my god with my hands, carry god around. Look, my god has fourteen heads, each one mounted on its own elegant neck — fourteen necks rising...

      I saw I saw American night in broad daylight I saw houses worth millions of dollars and houses without windows on the outskirts Detroit I saw my ancestors’ American dream several Mexicans cleaning in a hotel where I danced YMCA at a wedding...

    Revivifying Bees in the PRU* (*Pupil Referral Unit)   A tennis racquet leaves a waffle imprint on the forehead of the boys that get too close. The Jackson 5 at full blast at 08:45 bounces off the Georgian townhouses that surround the PRU. This...

    fish! that year, the summer was nosebleeds and candy apples. none of our clothes fit us anymore — our bellies burst with fruit and sugar and all the sun we could swallow. we scratched mosquito bites the size of grapes until yellow scabs peeled off, our...

      Helen (Mother) My mother was alone when she gave birth, save for the flocks of anonymous doctors who removed me from her bloodied womb with spears and forceps, whilst my father marked her agony with stains on the bar. When I arrived late, pink,...

    Clippers We took turns on the wooden chair, feet bare-soled on the kitchen tiles, head bent forward as if in prayer, the old towel around your shoulders. As the clippers purred, nape to crown, I folded each of your ears in turn, while outside, beyond our...

    You who stand in the red dust   know that frogs no longer croak for rain. Bare ground cracks across remains of drains, windows in the taman-taman gape-broken and houses semi-detach, uprooting terraces. Absence is only flaking paint. Blown away are...

      finally i’m annoyed enough to write a poem i sit & eat in the vietnamese restaurant long enough to feel annoyed a man is stroking a cat in the doorway i order the number 4 and watch katie cook the chicken on the grill finally i’m annoyed...

      Before the market town with the Pepper Pot building and the concrete bus station and its standing water, we were Hampshire, Beirut and Freetown with neat shelves of Vimto, ivory, Milupa, of Milton, tie-dyes, pink almonds and sugarcane. I picture...

      In the Line Up It's beginning to rain. Just drizzle now but who knows what that portends. And there's no shelter. But at least we're moving, slowly to be sure, but forward. "What's this line for?" I ask the guy in front of me. Not that I'm curious...

      A Present for Cat If I could send you the perfect present it would be a box with the words DELICIOUS VICTORIA SPONGE CAKE on the front and when you  open that box it would reveal another box with the words FEROCIOUS SCORPION!!! written across it...

      Everyone Welcome I sit at the back of class, behind rows of people in padmasana. Legs crossed on their mats. I stay in my chair. I’m not everyone. I haven’t taught anyone in a chair before, says the teacher. I assume you know what you’re doing....

      Lunchbreak She slips away from fire and steel, each dip of the paddle a balm for tension at the surface. She steers a course beyond the rocks, slow in the heavy water that still smarts with April’s chill and with the poise of someone at ease with...