Grace Trailing the outer path of Regent’s Park like a half-lit ghost grieving the foetus I’ve shed I crawl under the skirts of a pink rhododendron. I enter a womb of writhing branches, humming blooms, pink filtering light. A bee homes in on my...

      The Bus Pulls Up The bus pulls up at the curb beside the half-smoked cigarettes, a single rain-soaked woolen glove, and two face masks, one with peacocks, the other with Pikachu.     Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland. His...

      Skate Music Everything went wintry. You skated out hunched and tentative – your fading skill recognising limits. Each scrape of fate came smaller, and we watched you skirl until you were out of reach of sight or ear, free and final as a...

      Please accept our apologies as we stand with a basket of light, brighter than its weight in gold. Cherry-picked too. The old lady pledged that it could withstand quite the storm. Perhaps she was right, but the painted sign says in bold: Sadly, The...

      Lies From my window I watch leaves flutter. Seagulls stamping their feet, I play with my loneliness. I write stories, I tell lies like: “My heart leaps at the thought of love.”     Mariam Saidan is Iranian/British and has worked in the...

      Mushroom Picker Mushrooms grow well in chicken manure, but there’s a rumour the farm is experimenting with faeces from the local zoo. We traipse into the shed: a corrugated half-cylinder. I wrangle a ladder that’s taller than me, stuff blue...