Hello

      Demise We had a lovely time At the horror-house. I don’t quite remember When, now, only That it was the last day The flowers bloomed And the bluebells all but rang. It was like attending A colourfully black funeral. There was a bite to eat And...

      everyone’s version of heaven is different i’ve given up self-medicating with fluffy toy dogs and texts from sermonising men who tell me the average person speaks eleven million words a year there isn’t really an average though it’s their way of...

    Weekly ritual Bathrooms were white, in a row, no radox cartons or bottles of Ulay, no toothbrushes sharing a pot on shelves, no trappings of family to wrap round these unparented children not allowed to wash their own hair. And they laughed at Goldballs...

      Détente When I arrived home, the cat was already packing, said she had had enough – if not in so many words – stole a last glance at her coat in the bedroom mirror and left. Not as much as a purr for a week, though we noticed on Whatsapp she had...

      Happy Verges These happy verges in rough grass that claimed us, flowers on the weeds where birds’ nests brim with delicate eggs where all adventures end in fields of germinating seeds while I alone forever wander I would not wish this journey...

      Crux I was dreaming my real self when I woke with a jolt, had just slipped out of my seventh skin was approaching the nub of the thing. Like a chrysalis from ‘Khrusos’ meaning gold and holding S.O.S within it, I was slowly unpeeling my wings,...

      I Keep Dreaming of my Scarab Pendant You know me by my tooth enamel. I am skull, death in gold and malachite, cinnebared by rising suns, blood’s zest. I am woman of silence and feathers, moaning at the king’s touch, screaming to the gods at my...

    The Remnants It started with the usual sorts of beautiful trinket - flowers, feathers, pebbles in the rough and wonky shape of things - collected into shoe boxes, or lost beneath the car seat on the journey home. And we didn't think much of the...

    The Cutters It's the clatter I hear first of metal tooth biting down scything sharp through the wildings. The most stupid way to die is flaying by hedge cutter. So I wave my arms and jump and the two farmboys with grins like soldiers pause the grinders...

      I Claim This Sky All winter I have kept vigil on these lichen-licked branches, compacting myself like stone. I’ve laid out the bones of my dead, glued my bloodied edges back together, shredded my pages and fed them to the wind – a lost language...

      Watching the Dead It’s how you remember him most. Under the lampshade with no sound, cobalt slip-ons angled by the chair, hands white as plugs (he’d always question the purpose of winter). It’s how you remember him most. Paints in a fossil box...

      Finishing Touch God chars the edges of the day, the sky turns the colour of the sediment at the bottom of a bottle of cheap orange squash. I imagine it like tea-staining paper to make replicas of old treasure maps as a kid. I remember burning the...

      Once it’s gone, it won’t come back Go to your fields And go to your fen. Go to your tiny Patches of scrub. Breathe the green Whilst it lingers still. Go to your trees And breathe in their bark. Feel the ground undulate Free of concrete. Look to...

      The Change I wasn’t going to come to the party but you threw bright covers over the noisy magpies who were pecking all the grain – there are still scratch marks on the carpet where they learnt to dance the watusi whilst pretending to be hip. And...

      She Lives Alone She lives in the 6am coffee before the alarm, before school. The light on the water on her skin in the shower, in the way her feet are then young and familiar on the tiles, childlike in their delightful lace of bubbles. She lives...

      Minimalist you play me Philip Glass on video call behind you I see trees in motion stopping and starting as the connection wavers the green fronds repeat the same movement minutely varied and the music builds its slender momentum there is so much...

      grey pennant [as taken from Dulux Paint] speaks easy. vomits up love, that pigeon wing cootie catcher. how easy – run of garlic like a spat-out oyster on bruschetta. I snap the necks of all the men in my life and they fizz. fluster out like the...