How Young Bodies Work Grace…in that light was a promise of balance – Joy Harjo O timeline drop us here the moment you step from the subway on 23rd the boy spinning on his back / popping air O body sharpening skin into spin solo show staged on asphalt...

      In love with You played Kylie Minogue and Lady Gaga on vinyl, because it was on trend again, and not just for our dads, and we thought it was cool to know all the words to Judas, because we’d studied theology and we had PhDs. And we danced...

      emerald earrings misfortune from nowhere stooped like a peregrine folded, weaponized slicing away before from after as clean as cutting butter or severing heads half the house is collapsed open to the weather defenceless, astounded the other half...

      I whipped the clothes off her my mother’s retelling of the quick thinking that saved my skin. I remember reaching for the handle over-edging the table, tipping, scalding, Mum’s hands pulling dress, vest, knickers, stripping fabric before it fused...

      Möbius Strip reducing her life to seventeen bullet points was simpler far than she’d somehow imagined and she had them graven in cursive script on a one-sided strip of her native silver given a twist by a cunning smith hammer-welded so the text is...

      Animals Lit by Neon  yellow pours down like rain. yellow pours down in sheets. I know they’re out there. I know you’re out there. down here it’s warm we gape through grilles spilling yellow into quivering stripes. dark driven auto vehicle bodies...

      One thousand cranes I want to learn how it feels to give birth in a tunnel in my home city to hear shelling through the night I want to draw straight lines not diagrams of molotov cocktails tourniquets or AK42 rifles or posters pleading for help I...

Mandy Beattie’s poetry’s been published in: Poets Republic, Wordpeace, Dreich, Wee Dreich, The Haar, Purple Hermit, Wordgathering, Clearance Collection, Spilling Cocoa with Martin Amis, Marble Poetry, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, Lothlorien Poetry & Book Week...

      Birthday Boyo No sunshine, but plenty of coal to cosy up our terrace. Gran smothers extra toast with raspberry jam, and I'm drawing Caerphilly castle. I climbed that spiral stair today to the office. I was grassed up. Dapper Jones made me empty my...