morphine the first time i drank morphine a weight slid over my heart   & the whole summer collapsed under me   my head packed with ice phone overflowing with garbled texts   & all because of this vertebra   a firecracker in a...

      Out nights were forest with foliage too dense to let in the light of moon and stars – and days were savannah   prairie   steppe – glory and danger in strangeness of mountain and sea and river – survival was tracking the flock to the watering hole...

      A Talkative Saint who lived in a hedge He was caught up in what he did and he couldn’t do enough of it and he did it all the time. He would talk about it to anyone even if they told him they couldn’t understand a word of it and didn’t want to...

      I’m crying in a bar when a wise old cowboy turns to me and says If you found love now, you’d run it right into the ground. I bet you sit around swallowing up everybody else’s light, wondering why you never end up being anything but midnight. I...

      The unloved pipes It’s not rats (there are no rats); it’s the goddam plumbing cobbled together by some inept predecessor. Knocking whenever the heating comes on, clanging whenever the shower’s turned on, clicking whenever hot water rushes through...

      Lockdown Release Suddenly summer. Parakeets whirled above, too fast for more than a glimpse of jade green glitter, an after-echo of cries Flowers leaned on walls, bright lips breathed fragrant calls the insects answered, wings a glinting blur,...

      What Matters Barbara Hepworth on politics After a long time with persistent, small movements, each one following the effects of the last, the shape becomes clearer, large chunks fall away, air is let into stone. Further in, planes flatten out,...

       Hauntings 1 After the funeral, the coughs continued. 2 Care homes regain life at night. 3 Wait. The morgue will reopen soon. 4 They came asking for more starch. 5 For them, lockdown has just begun. 6 He came back. “Forgot the mask”. 7 Sorry for...