Sugar Daddy The week before Christmas, my friend arranged a blind date for me. In retrospect, she wanted to replace herself with me. Oysters, lobster thermidor, sherry trifle with silky custard in the Savoy Grill. He flattered, flirted, cupped me...

      At Home with Long John Silver   My mother told me to never suffer fools. "Never suffer fools" she'd say and she hit me round the head. I had an intolerable migraine that stopped me getting out of bed. "Never suffer fools" she said. She'd look them...

      Dream witch Clearing out clutter before Christmas I pick up the figure my daughter made in October; clay skull on stick body yellow corn kernel eyes and crooked mouth pressed in by small fingers, dried brown corn silk hair under a crown of leaves...

      Spinning out      She sees but doesn’t as she spins her coffee out. Behind her, morning squishes wide against the station buffet. Train liveries drape across their line of travel, suffer the shunt and wheeze of doors and half-tumbled bodies....

      Glorious The problem with hotels, she’s found is that you cannot escape the mirrors the buffed marble polish of it all. She can swerve in oversized robes bath towels, sheets.  Do the dance of the seven veils, but still is destined to catch the...

      Unscripted Surfaces The window frames a mirror-lake In the room, a desk, oak that still Calls to its sisters, it suffers the fate Of use and wear, the many hands That have laid on it, the careless cups, The lamps and trinkets and it is full Of...

      When You Become a Man's Muse don’t make the mistake of marrying him. You’ll end up in the kitchen facing the wall until he's ready, then dragged on all fours onto the canvas, dressing gown undone, pet dog following. stories shift in contours of...

      Cold is easy you know where you are with it. No lukewarm promises of what will never come. No ghost-friend who ignores you then tells you through someone else that it was your fault all along. This is no hair toss, shoulder-shrug. No brag in the...

      My kitten takes me everywhere I need to go When I am sunk her ears remind me of lightness and rightness and treats, they are paper cones for sweets, chips or popcorn, except these are upside down and miniaturised and made of ultra-thin flickable...