Beware the silent child (4) The arcade is a belly of echoes, jingles glancing off games and slot machines, repeat repeat repeat, punters’ voices a murmur that dies on the carpet. You enter to spend a penny, then retrace your steps to the exit,...

  Beside Everything, in Paris The morning was warmer than the one before, with a blue demitasse lighting your hand up in front of Notre Dame, its steam disappearing like its insides. And the gold flush of my shoulder against your cheek. We held our mouths for...

      Fish at the quarry I usually hide Fish in my stomach, let it flip away angrily in the acid, or else I stuff it in my pocket, where it gets all woolly and dry, and goes still. Today, I take Fish to the quarry, let it stew in me as I gaze out over...

      The Pea-Sheller of Crab Street She’d be out there all hours, half past three, two minutes to midnight, shelling peas on the front doorstep, always impeccably scrubbed. The pop of the shuck and the plip of the peas as they dropped into the chipped...

      Picking Them Up at the Hospital My daughter, son-in-law struggle to strap their newborn into the car seat    pulling the seat belt across, under and back, tying a knot, trying           again. My daughter chastises her attentive husband who can't...

      Any Excuse You won’t find him in there, says Alan Shea as the policeman flips the freezer flap in the fridge looking, they say, for INLA escapee Mad Dog Magee in such an unlikely haven — the home of a Manx gay rights campaigner with a telephone...

      AWAKENED BY THE APPROACHING GARBAGE TRUCK WHILE DREAMING OF DU FU First moments of dawn immersed in song of many-voiced birds. From behind the house I wheel the bin to the still dark street. On sky’s rim colors appear that have never been named. I...

      Today is Tomorrow I remember this from before, a sudden plane hoovering up the sky more energy than a wasp its direction is its excuse – a new war somewhere. I stand on the fresh autumn grass as the thrumming plane disappears thrusting into space,...

      EYEWITNESS OF THE INVISIBLE A homeless moon lingers over the town. I linger with it, both of us bracing for single combat with oblivion at the crossroads where silence is spoken. I was interrogated once again during the night but betrayed only...