Brush-tailed landlords In Australia, we shared our house with possums who lived in the space above the ceiling. They had been there long before we moved in and likely regarded us as their tenants. We kept daylight hours that didn’t bother them and...

    CARRIE (With reference to the Stephen King novel of the same title) I learn about the shame of a woman’s body from my mother’s handwritten notes. The ones I pass, red-faced, to my teacher that excuse me from showers and swimming. I stand at the edge of...

      Grooming My brain was full of hair that you wanted to brush, style like a dolly. Good dolly. You worked your way up to stroking it, as if I were fleshy, jellyfish tendrils, that I might sting you if I wasn’t ready. You gathered the threads of my...

      I’m pulling my hair out again and I worry that this is how the children will remember me. As balls of tangled fluff, that roll lazily under the sofa, to snag later in the hoover.  Will they curse me every time they have to empty the bag?  Take it...

      Gone The tap is not dripping. I check the windows and leave. The doors are all locked. I sit on the bus and wait for a thought. Nothing comes. The tap is not dripping. I look out at the muddy fields and write a note to myself. The doors are all...

      Start With The Thing That Can Fly Away It was a goldfinch balancing on a teezle, she’d planted it for this very reason, and to see a tall hat of snow. The custard yellow flashes, the head dipped in red, the white apostrophes on black wings. But...

      Alley Cat The dark never knew such corridors, The evening gallant upon its fur.     Jason Visconti has attended both group and private poetry workshops. His work has appeared in various journals, including Literary Yard, Indigo Rising,...

      Bowled Over As I walk them home from school Sneaky Camouflage and Brave Barry train for The Big Fight, dangling from fence railings and fake-kicking brick walls in their black Mary Janes. They’re going to swap summer uniforms for shorts and...

    Birding at dusk On the shores of Mangalajodi: one of Chilika’s few undiscovered corners, the boatman welcomed me with warmth in his eyes. As these wetlands happen to be the turf of these poachers turned naturalists who know it like the back of their...