Hello

      On Sighting a Truck Named after a Planet The van at the end of my road has a name: Saturn Removals. I like the sound of that. No fancy intros. The driver steps out, straight down to business. He’s bigger than I expect and the ice-rings that circle...

      Tearing i.m. Rose Strowman what a thrill for a kid    running up the staircase he’s climbed a thousand times before and seeing the wardrobe    for the first time not as a boring white object     but as a newfound treasure trove    because    this...

    Our Bedroom There in the bed, like dirt or blood, someone else lay, not sure who.  They smelt like apricot and drove us wild.  We all twisted in the duvet and rolled up tight like a burrito.  Sweating and swearing, knotted up all angry-like, dirty white...

      Alternates after Pessoa Do you remember that film where there are multiple suns, or was it moons, or both; and that other film where the guy can’t escape this one day, waking up to the same song, same radio news, I would have been like ‘oh,...

      Proofreading the Motorbike Manual I’m struggling to understand the meaning of float pivot pin, centrifugal filter, whether values or valves fits the context, when there’s the familiar sound of your impromptu knock and running to open the door...

      Light at the edge of the world It takes both of us to pull the door open before I follow her up to the light room, climbing what appears to be a thousand spiral steps. At the top, leaning on a bent rail worn by old hands, I am breathing hard, like...

      The Sturgeon The mechanics of suffering is not so daunting to understand it hurts for a while- gums and bellies pierced by an unseen passion... and then it is done the savory-sweet, cherry cough syrup scent of death dries and disappears, leaving...

      The Ceiling is Painted Vivid White Many things crave our attention: the plates maturing in the sink after last night’s spag bol; the poinsettia dying on the windowsill; the news constantly playing on phone screens or the TV; that photo that needs...

      The Biologist, the Poet and the Silverfish On my first ever date, he romances me not with poems but with talk of nocturnal dry-land fish, how they glide and skitter like mercurial swimmers and grace the damp of his bedsit grime. Like them, he has...

      Many hands The day before the fridge broke down I wished it would shut up As I listened, trying to breathe, the noise separated I could hear the electrons shocking about in the wires the liquefied gas gurgling thinly in the pipes a ringing like a...

      The Lost Tongue Some said he had no tongue. The words he spoke came through his body. I watched him nod, put up a thumb, flick his head, shake a hand, shrug, and walk fast as if his feet were on fire. Not many people knew him or maybe they didn’t...

      No Show Poser un lapin is what I keep doing when I suggest we meet in the forest where the air is soft and the trees leafing as though we could walk side by side without touching as though you hadn’t entwined your feet round mine like roots...

      The Road to Witcombe Water As she passed the white hemlock weeds that crowded the verges beneath the wires from the Old Exchange, my mother left her footprints remembered by the gravel, dusty tracks by the lichgate, fifty years by the weathered,...

      Sweeping out the Store Before the finality of his broom and the open door he    pauses to study the trails toing and froing along the dusty sidewalk some crossing this threshold to buy supplies a pair or two don’t stop head on past to the saloon...

      The Shed Key has a Passive Voice The shed key was lost. The little one tells me it was sucked down a super massive black hole the middle one hopes we will find it by clawing through cat shit the biggest one emits a sound akin to the thump of a...

      Cold Case Their front door. What was the colour? Blue? Green? No, some things they could agree so it must have been white, no doubt a beaten white, needing a repaint. Because, after all this time, it’s the truth he wants, a nailing of fault, he...

      The printer needs paper We think we know what it means when this message appears, but do we really. Dutifully we search out the half-used packet, refill the over-complicated tray mechanism and carry on printing. But, in what seems like so short a...