Smoky   Mother chain-smoked, leaving lipsticked butts in plastic ashtrays, where they sent up wisps for hours. Now, wildfires out west blow their dark clouds of sadness eastward to muddy the skies over Lake Michigan that used to be blue. I...

      Mucky fingers A wild daffodil bulb wilts at my feet dug up by a dog. I scrape my fingers into the loam, resettle it in the riverbank. At twilight, two children crouch over a fish – it flaps on the path. There! the boy digs into the wound with his...

      Double Life In the Christmas vacation I work two jobs: an early shift at the sorting office; a late shift at a restaurant. In my daybreak life I become an expert on London postcodes. At night I learn to balance things on my wrists – three plates,...

      film stars we don’t go to parties in dark sunglasses we keep our mouths closed we stand under neon lights with tall cocktails clothed in navy blue your arm is shadowy under the peach tree listen we could make it in los angeles leave secret...

      Sourdough My hands heave with microcosmosis. Under my nails a miniscule municipality with pink glass dome, chipped. There is discontent amongst the denizens. Lactobacilli line up throw bottles of urine at Candida eat each other down dark passages...

    Talking Dirty   Ten years after you died I asked you Was it worth it? and this time you did not answer, your mouth being full of dirt. Dirt followed me around. I spent nights vacuuming and mopping, trying to beat out the echo of your footprints....

      The Nightwatchman Over his shoulder, I’m watching him chew sarnies out of grease-proof, at his last place of work, cracking a pack of Rich Tea. Between one snap and the next, he follows the beam of his torch, ferreting to the four corners of the...

      The Talk There are cheese and onion crisps in a flowered bowl,  sliced tomatoes, strong tea, Mr Kipling’s Fondant Fancies, ye always loved those, all the news that matters, a family that doesn’t speak English has moved into Mrs McLeod’s God rest...

      To Stability The consultants agree your latest bloods and lung function indicate stability; that you’re likely to remain disastrously alive as a toothache buzzing like an electric saw applied to your wide-awake jaw, alive as a spinal injury that’s...