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      Childhatcheries   Even I keep secrets shhh     I’m in love with fingers caressing my insides feeling coils fiddling with my fan I live by touch by brink a contract between      love       grief & up to elbows nurses in soapy rubber gloves...

      My Great Great Grandfather was a shipwrecked Swedish sailor, with sea legs and river hands, forearms like binding strakes. A stanchion of a man, he worked the waters of the bustling Thames, was ship’s labourer then Lighterman, loading cargo and...

      TALENTS The plaster statue of the benefactor moved, albeit slightly. The tilt of the head slightly altered its angle. Leaning more left. Or perhaps more right. Bereft of patience, I thought I could study it no longer, even should it move again,...

      Cece She brings with her an apple as a shield, after every bite she wobbles her tooth, wonders if the next huge bite will be enough. She tells me she is thinking of a giraffe, the giraffe she is certain the tooth fairy will bring. She picks the...

      Ceasefire We lounge in singed hotels seeking salvation in burnt pillowcases, mini bars filled with bullet cases. We swig gems down with vodka, rubies cutting our throats to remind us we are alive, somehow. So much for not eating our gold horde....

      While on Sickness Benefits I sit by a river in Pembrokeshire which is darker (so brown and foul yet, cold-cosy, like childhood dreams) than today’s dark discussion: riverside weekly venting, becoming routine for me and a friend, during our...

      Peace Pipe Now! she goes. He sucks hard, the bowl seethes, smoke shoots up the stem, down his throat, fills his lungs. He tries hard to hold it in, coughs, chokes it out in racking spasms. She laughs. What’s he like? He hopes this will bring them...

      Release This prisoner, isolation wing, wounded, clipped, in stutter nest, unfettered need, communicate, beyond the clamp, a grind of teeth, stumped, just left, ignored, but there. Light all night, the clock reset, sidereal, side-tracked from norm,...

      Places Other People Live Orange hilltops in nice winters glimpsed through wet windows on quiet mornings with safe people tiny lights glint at night, illuminate a friendly darkness where people come home in nice cars. Rainy days spent indoors or...

      Can’t Name Trees Either Plastic spoons, no bellies to show for, scooping the cream left unswallowed, strew the pavement like bird food. Who’s to say it’s unnatural? Street parties are well straddled heaving from recycling bins, We were thrown, we...

      Zip Wire to Freedom (after Simon Armitage) I write in praise of air. It was just me clothed in a translucent glide, dressed as a thunderbolt, blurry-eyed holding the sky in my hair. To the top in shocking daylight, then helped to lie face down. I...

      To Frank, on going to High School Be bold and push open doors. Embrace the subjects that thrill you. Maths. Drama. Art. Endure those you hate and do them well. History. Literacy. Dance. Life is about balance. Find your tribe. The weird ones. The...

      Life Skills Module 3 1.1.  Often misunderstood: Stem cell research Children Trigonometry Joy Choose two. Compare and contrast. 1.2.  In autumn, trees weep their leaves, ready to bud again in spring. Does this make you sad, or happy? 1.3.  Your...

      Dead-spit   My father kept what little he had of my mother in a drawer. It branded his next wife as second. She tipped the contents onto a fire she’d lit in the garden – photos with deckled edges, wedding pictures in card sleeves, snaps of my...

      Medlar Jelly This is going to be a pre-Raphaelite poem about the fruit of the medlar tree that grows in parterres by the West Wing. They leave the fruit long on the tree so that it can blet (good word) to its heart’s content. Then the gardeners...

      Dead Graham Amuses Himself Dead Graham stands in the doorway eating a family pack of Tyrell’s crisps my crisps Dead Graham isn’t a ghostly thing ghosts were at least alive once he never was Who’s had all my vintage Cheddar? Dead Graham smirks from...