Today’s choice
Previous poems
Janet Hatherley
In my cookery exam, we have to prepare a family meal
This is summer
and Mum can’t put out
her trot line with its hooks
because of swimmers
so I buy three mackerel
from the fishmonger.
I cycle to the school bus stop
one arm on the handlebar,
carrying my ingredients
in a square biscuit tin
under my other arm.
In the cookery room
I slit the fish open,
bright-eyed, translucent
green and silver,
tip the guts and
maroon hearts
into the bin.
I scrape off the scales
with a blunt knife,
place the fish under the grill.
On the plate
I pipe mashed potato
around them
in rosettes.
My cookery teacher is pleased.
I come first in the exam.
John Grey
it’s more
of a gathering
than a town
Antony Dunn
Have you heard the one about
how I’m hoping to bow out –
playing guitar for the Cure
Alex Scarborough
I measure distance in Spotify playlists
so I can’t be trusted with maps.
Myra Schneider
Forget the invisible network of servers which stores
and manages or mismanages data in the unending sky
far above our heads . . .
Sef
The body is not solid. The body is almost perfect.
Jon Miller
The upper floor of the old byre
a darkness made of owl-stare—
its blink drinks you in.
Salvatore Difalco
No green swell this evening
will detach me from my hat.
Annah Atane
That night,
the stars had slept. The wind
silent as something dying.
Jake Roberts
hamlet asked it to the dark night sea
where do waters end and i begin