A Death (After Tu Fu) The night is bottomless. I can’t sleep. Darkness smells of winter. Stars fade away, beyond my reach, like waves on a distant beach. In mockery the polestar dies last of all. My wine bottle is empty. I can only bow my head. My...

      Demise We had a lovely time At the horror-house. I don’t quite remember When, now, only That it was the last day The flowers bloomed And the bluebells all but rang. It was like attending A colourfully black funeral. There was a bite to eat And...

      everyone’s version of heaven is different i’ve given up self-medicating with fluffy toy dogs and texts from sermonising men who tell me the average person speaks eleven million words a year there isn’t really an average though it’s their way of...

    Weekly ritual Bathrooms were white, in a row, no radox cartons or bottles of Ulay, no toothbrushes sharing a pot on shelves, no trappings of family to wrap round these unparented children not allowed to wash their own hair. And they laughed at Goldballs...

      Détente When I arrived home, the cat was already packing, said she had had enough – if not in so many words – stole a last glance at her coat in the bedroom mirror and left. Not as much as a purr for a week, though we noticed on Whatsapp she had...

      Happy Verges These happy verges in rough grass that claimed us, flowers on the weeds where birds’ nests brim with delicate eggs where all adventures end in fields of germinating seeds while I alone forever wander I would not wish this journey...

      Crux I was dreaming my real self when I woke with a jolt, had just slipped out of my seventh skin was approaching the nub of the thing. Like a chrysalis from ‘Khrusos’ meaning gold and holding S.O.S within it, I was slowly unpeeling my wings,...

      I Keep Dreaming of my Scarab Pendant You know me by my tooth enamel. I am skull, death in gold and malachite, cinnebared by rising suns, blood’s zest. I am woman of silence and feathers, moaning at the king’s touch, screaming to the gods at my...