The Big Outside For Ellis b 1/2/21 In the beginning there is light and the soft rhythmic boom of the dark stops. I open my mouth and become hunger. I call out and create a mother. Wherever I look, I bring the world into being. I make a man and a...

      content warning: rape He wrote on the ground (John 8:8)   a finger in the dust      grit under nail grubby     sun-hardened skin little ridges in the soil     stones pushed aside an earthy writing slate curled or straight     I never knew my...

      Salvatrix Mundi It’s hard to be Jesus with the housework to do and the world to care for all on her own. She’s stopped going to bed. Once the ironing’s done she'll nod off in her chair. She wakes up about four alert for earthquakes or floods. She...

      Sometimes, a Man Could Cry Sometimes, I just hold my head, clasping its wreck of metal. It is just enough to keep the spine and chest upright, just enough to wire the jaw into a fixed smile and fuse and screw up bones; just enough to keep up. The...

      Roses Wielding secateurs on Saturday I hack at roses, urging the blackspot to be gone and setting the straggling thorns in check. My mind turns to you and how I trained you to eat the undergrowth, to chew meadowsweet, parade mushrooms like...

      Surge The day approaches from round the corner, narcissus insinuate themselves into the soil, a jay rises high, too pink and beautiful to be contained. Beginning of buds sing at the top of the flame bush zinging like lemon zest on a tired tongue....

      Allotment Service Metal in the sky: ash-cold afternoon The big fork: foot on its shoulder Heavy handed: spearing the heap Slip through tangle: the prongs ring And layers gape: yellowing stalk-work Developing compost: the heat rises Vapours...

    Change The general acceptance of the bicycle came suddenly. People that have helped me on numerous occasions who I’ll never meet: a counsellor, an academic mentor who is also the former. What does it mean to take charge of your mental health? And why for...