Today’s choice
Previous poems
Sally Jenkins
The Biology Department
Funny how Year 8 is doing bones
now, of all the weeks. In the prep room
we strip flesh off chicken wings,
steep the bones in acid til they bend
like rubber, and the girls shriek.
Cardboard femur and tibia
jointed with split pins swing,
and I sing while I work: the toe bone
connected to the foot bone,
now hear the word of the Lord.
I carry the skeleton in my arms
from Art back home to Science.
We sway like Fred and Ginger,
my fingers falling between its ribs
makes me weep.
I carried your crushed weight home
Mum, in a paper bag ribboned like a gift.
Tucked you under my bed to sleep.
Sally Jenkins is currently studying for the MA in Poetry Writing at The Poetry School, London. This is her first publication.
Play, National Poetry Day: Heather Hughes, Laura Webb, Jude Brigley
We searched so long for that clover.
Every time the sun shone we scoured
the fields and woods, running past
the children playing with skipping ropes
Play, For National Poetry Day: Suzanna Fitzpatrick, Charlotte Dormandy, Lee Fraser
10 Children dart in the dark, screamers
streaming sweets and neon, their parents
Play, for National Poetry Day: MD Bier, Catherine Sweeney, Rachel Burns
Those hot hot summer days. Hair curling against sticky clammy foreheads.
Pony tails, pig tails or braids. Keep it off our neck and backs.
Play, for National Poetry Day: Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana, Ruth Aylett , Brian Comber
They can imagine a forest,
we don’t need this minimalist tree,
we’ll represent a place to live without walls, without foundations or a hearth.
Play, for National Poetry Day: Jennifer A. McGowan, Judith Shaw, Robin Houghton, Wendy Klein
Over and over, you are Dorothy
or Glenda the Good,
me the Wicked Witch of the West
Play, for National Poetry Day: Oenone Thomas, Seán Street, David A. Lee
Every evening at the care home, I pull in
two armchairs til they’re facing. Opposites,
we never fist bump, high-five or
touch each other’s vying outstretched fingers.
Play, for National Poetry Day: Gayathiri Kamalakanthan, Paul Stephenson, Jem Henderson
How two men can become
four men can become
eight men
Play, for National Poetry Day: Elena Brake, Karen Downs-Barton, John Mole, Eleanor Holmes
Take eight each of hex bolts
washers, locks…
it’s important
to fasten these tightly.
Jade Wright
Things have been rough lately.
It seems impossible now,
as the breeze relieves us