Today’s choice
Previous poems
Claire Booker
Dehydration
Never has there been so much interest
in the humble tongue. It peek-a-boos from my mouth
like the little man in a weather clock.
The consultant’s quick look predicts storms in its fur.
She keeps pouring water into my glass as fast
as I can gulp it down – more, yes, more –
working the jug with her right hand, taking my pulse
with the left, eyes fixed on my SpO2 levels.
What couldn’t she do with three arms?
Claire Booker‘s poetry has appeared in Agenda, Dark Horse, Magma and Stand, among others. She won The Poetry Society’s 2023 Stanza Competition, and was longlisted in the 2023 National Poetry Competition. Her collection, A Pocketful of Chalk is out with Arachne Press. Her pamphlet, The Bone That Sang, is with Indigo Dreams.
Jenny Robb
The nun in charge of the children is thin, her back straight as punishment.
Ken Evans
You try doing star-jumps, steps,
or squats, in knee-high wellies.
Joe Williams
I was born in a town of shadows.
Anne Symons
She was only a little woman
five feet nothing in nylon stockings.
‘If I stood sideways they’d mark me absent.’
Ben
When she said ‘could’, it was clearly in italics
and when she said ‘one day’, the creak of glaciers
shuddered around its edges.
Dragana Lazici
the days are long but the years are short.
seconds are tiny kitchen knives in my back.
i stopped reading Dickinson, her voice is a sad parrot.
Abigail Ottley
Faces, unless they come swimming up close. are a blur of piggy-pink and ice-
cream. In the street, she doesn’t know, cannot be certain when to smile, when to
look away
Maggie Mackay
The teacher is an old spindly man. Grim, out of a Grimm’s tale. Scarecrow hair, thinning. Unsmiling.
Natasha Gauthier
The tawny clutch appeared
on high-heeled evenings only,
slept in a nest of white tissue.