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      Black Carr im I shall not want… Greensleeves shunted through an ice cream truck in the boroughs, & leaf-gagged noise in this snug gorge….under the corporated ruins of Leeds & Bradford, the mayflower is stage-managed here: spectacular fists...

      Red-tailed black cockatoo (Ngoolyark) Kaarak, kaarak The red-tailed black cockatoos call from bleeding limbs of the blooming Marri. Chet, chet, chet, chet They peck the honkey nuts. Hard fruit falls to the boort and bilara of the djarlma floor....

      The Drowning We slept that summer in the small house Bedded in a meadow of foxgloves and thistles, Just a cry from the ocean -- Everyone knew about the boy Dragged from the water onto the beach, His lungs pumped with kelp and fry -- You’d span the...

    Extended Magic Cat Metaphor Once you disassemble it it’s all fucked up. Turns out just despair held it together. Blinky the magic cat laid sweets — paper-wrapped, coloured or  plain, familiar or unknown like eggs for years, then one day Blinky broke:...

      Panning His gardening cleats punctured her left knee when she stumbled at his feet in a sack race. There was talk of tetanus. In the holidays she pretended to be his nurse. She made sandwiches when he’d just eaten. In case he had forgotten his...

      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...