Building a fire My mother is kneeling by the hearth tearing strips from the West Briton rolling them round her fingers. I see the Penroses had their Silver Wedding. She lays the twisted paper criss-cross in the grate, newspaper ink smudges her...

      Childhatcheries   Even I keep secrets shhh     I’m in love with fingers caressing my insides feeling coils fiddling with my fan I live by touch by brink a contract between      love       grief & up to elbows nurses in soapy rubber gloves...

      My Great Great Grandfather was a shipwrecked Swedish sailor, with sea legs and river hands, forearms like binding strakes. A stanchion of a man, he worked the waters of the bustling Thames, was ship’s labourer then Lighterman, loading cargo and...

      TALENTS The plaster statue of the benefactor moved, albeit slightly. The tilt of the head slightly altered its angle. Leaning more left. Or perhaps more right. Bereft of patience, I thought I could study it no longer, even should it move again,...

      Cece She brings with her an apple as a shield, after every bite she wobbles her tooth, wonders if the next huge bite will be enough. She tells me she is thinking of a giraffe, the giraffe she is certain the tooth fairy will bring. She picks the...

      Ceasefire We lounge in singed hotels seeking salvation in burnt pillowcases, mini bars filled with bullet cases. We swig gems down with vodka, rubies cutting our throats to remind us we are alive, somehow. So much for not eating our gold horde....

      While on Sickness Benefits I sit by a river in Pembrokeshire which is darker (so brown and foul yet, cold-cosy, like childhood dreams) than today’s dark discussion: riverside weekly venting, becoming routine for me and a friend, during our...

      Peace Pipe Now! she goes. He sucks hard, the bowl seethes, smoke shoots up the stem, down his throat, fills his lungs. He tries hard to hold it in, coughs, chokes it out in racking spasms. She laughs. What’s he like? He hopes this will bring them...

      Release This prisoner, isolation wing, wounded, clipped, in stutter nest, unfettered need, communicate, beyond the clamp, a grind of teeth, stumped, just left, ignored, but there. Light all night, the clock reset, sidereal, side-tracked from norm,...