Today’s choice
Previous poems
Kate Vanhinsbergh
We Should Probably Get Up Now
but, outside, the world has paused:
the wind has put down its loneliness,
its fear of never being seen, or known,
and next door’s kids have stopped screaming
through the wall. The cats are curled up
around our ankles, and you say you like me
like this, with the sun falling in slabs
through the window, onto my hair,
my curls glowing orange on the pillow.
You touch my cheek
with the backs of your fingers.
In this room, we have nothing but time –
glasses of water; a vase of white roses;
miles of cotton drawn up and spun
from the earth. I could have believed
that all chances, all paths crossed
were love’s quiet design,
the architecture of its concussive maze.
Kate Vanhinsbergh is a poet from Manchester, UK, and can be found on Instagram @kate.vanhinsbergh or X @katevanbergh
Anna Brook
I want to borrow gods
(as Adrienne does,
though she knew better)
their sad logic
their templates
Nigel King
Turn the mud. Bo Peep’s head tumbles out,
wide-eyed, mouth a little open.
Mohsen Hosseinkhani translated by Tahereh Forsat Safai
Men are the color of soil
Women are sitting on the ashes
Stephen Komarnyckyj
you are the shadow slipping through the mirror
Jo Farrant
We’re stuck on a scene, frozen, like the ice cubes I begged Mum to get with the little flowers in them. Like taking a test in the school gym but your knees are so big they’re banging into the desk.
Douglas K Currier
Afternoon hangs in the air, and the birds leave.
Frogs begin to talk to each other, and the heat congeals.
Stephen Chappell
If you could call that friend,
the special one,
the one you always love and know loves you
Marius Grose
Until the dead, sucked from leaf mould graves
are rising in forest sap, to make connections
inside strange green brains
Andrew Keyman
a day later you’re in l.a. picking out cars with the magic
only money can buy