Snowdrift From solitude to servitude I went: a stepmother’s bane, to maid-of-all-work for grubby curmudgeons. dust     sweep     scrub     sleep How the chores call to me, a broom-brush song that bristles at my hearing’s edge. How grudgingly I...

      A Sudden Shaft of Light My demented mother who doesn’t know me anymore, looks up as I come into the room. Ach - there’s my wee darling Moyra she says, such love in her voice that everything falls away but love. The slate is clean, and I, new born...

      Lullaby for the Child I Will Never Have Sometimes, in my dreams, I sing to you of mice running up the clock, of four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. I love you too much for fledglings severed by magpies: I found a chick once – feathers...

      heal with careful fingers i fashion unraveling blood vessels into nets that haul life to the surface over and over again     Aaliyah Cassim is a twenty-one year old university student who enjoys writing poetry and...

      The View From the Ambulance is limited, by design.  Strapped securely the dislocation, the shabby franchise- ification of high street, signage blinking by, the discomfort: this wasn't here before – is dulled.  Everything looks old already, except...

      Gannets I drive from your apartment to pick up a friend of a friend from the train station, take them to Muriwai to see the gannets. It is a warm day but there’s a bite in the air. My passenger is dressed for winter. She removes her seatbelt on...

      Homing Pigeon From the high window ledge of the house next door, he looks down into our kitchen. Two days since he landed, and whether we dance to the radio or open a newspaper, whether we chatter about nothing or argue over whose turn to cook,...