from The Lorch Family Magic Trick Adolf Althoff is used to riding tigers so when Gestapo soldiers come looking for Irene he plies them with Schnapps while Irene squeezes into a passage tight as a magician’s box – contracting in size until she is thin as bone if they slash a knife through it will probably miss her.     Mohammed Sahraoui Though he creaks like a tree bending under the aajej Mohammed still backflips back to his circus years when raising the alarm he whispers « go fishing » as Irene spirits herself away to the caravan hide-out while he prowls to and fro sniffing out Gestapo– a lynx in a leotard leaving no trace in the snow.     In the Heyday of the Circus tigers ripped apart their rations of raw meat before it grew icicles, stallions kicked at their stalls wired by the moon not to gallop in circles, elephant dung froze rolled off the dustpans like giant hailstones, the circus compound is now a makeshift enclosure of petting animals...

    Telling the Bees Little vials into which the sun has poured I tell you all I know about the failing crop, a marriage party, a stricken cow. Last summer I tied a ribbon to the top of your home, whispered with a sweet tongue that a new master had come. Winged engineers you shape hexagon from wax, craft perfect tessellations – there is little I could teach you but much I can share. Gold furred confidents today we speak like pelted sisters. I whisper of when I licked the sweat of his back as he slept how love leaves a bitter taste to the mouth, how men bring salt, not honey. It will seem that the night has come early as I cover you in black silk, knock on each hive to spill my message. I will sing as I dress you, a doleful tune of death and desertion my words a soft drone Little bee, our lord is dead Leave me not in my distress.       Anna Saunders' most recent collection is Feverfew.  She is the author of Communion, (Wild Conversations Press), Struck,...

    How it feels to be a bat There are the headaches, then the feverish sense of darkness. Taste, none but the crackly limbs of gnats. Hate is a constant on the radar and immense blank surfaces block the call by which I come to belong in the shape of a response. I tell you so you don't use that weapon empathy. In thinking into me you penetrate to take possession. I believe you believe you are alone in having that privilege, while all the while you're slowly being re-encompassed by black wings.       Andrew Nightingale (@andrenothingale) is currently working on a group of poems about the "Anatomical Venus". His previous work has included visual, concrete and prose poetry. He lives in St Leonards-on-Sea and works in the charity sector.

    A defence against all sabotage I shake out the creases from my coat, and climb the hundred steps leading to the feet of a bronze giant, its right hand raised, welcoming. I’m meant to lift my eyes, to take in its magnificence, to be stirred up into believing a myth— I tell it, No. It finds nothing to say. In the early morning, the city feels large and spacious. I watch the few people I encounter. I am training my mind to perceive, not the flash and bang of a pistol, not the white gold in a jeweller’s window, not a man’s taut muscled arm or a woman’s long neck, but to imagine in their place the myths that pull these things into my thoughts: myths of masculinity and femininity, money guns and ownership— I tell them, I cancel all myths. And then I laugh to myself, thinking that complete freedom is just another myth. Leafy branches wave above my head while I read a magazine, turning the flimsy pages with fingers stained and sticky with butter and honey. I see through the...

      The Slip Hold on tight to my writing hand, darling boy. Who knows how many words I have left. Don’t let me give them all to the page.   Holly Conant is a new writer and mature student, currently studying at the University of Leeds. Her poems ‘Suspicion’ and ‘A Door’ will be published later this year.