Today’s choice

Previous poems

Alice Huntley

 

 

 

The tenderness of beans

slack in a bag from the freezer aisle
shaken out like shrunken grey memes
I long for the podding of beans

to run my thumbnail once more
down the dark seam of your housing
over broad lumps and bumps

that split open to fuzzy white lining
where you lie like silent siblings
waiting to be held and counted:

six, seven, and sometimes a baby eighth
I used to wish I could zip up the pod,
put you all back where you began

nestled in darkness – but then
I’d miss the ritual unclothing:
hot blanch of kettle water

sharp squeeze at one end
as each inward green – so bright and tender –
leaps from my fingers with a squirt

leaving odd empty pouches
and a little seal at the end like
two lips pursed in kindness

 

 

Alice Huntley is an estuary girl, born by the Humber and living by the Thames. She has an MA in Chinese Studies and writes & reads with local poetry groups in Richmond and Twickenham. Her work deals with memory and the body and has appeared in Mslexia, the Waxed Lemon and Ink Sweat & Tears.

Ellora Sutton

My heart is breaking, so I’m setting up my new Wonder Oven.
The waft of toxicity as I run it on empty for ten minutes
is a welcome distraction.

Bob King

The first wristwatch was first worn
in 1810, despite what old turn-it-up
Flintstones episodes might have you
believe.

Brandon Arnold

Alone, I drive along the midnight, winter road. My left hand at the 12 o’clock position of the steering wheel. And I coast. I let out the day’s long breath, which started out today as a sigh.

Steph Ellen Feeney

My mother is here, and might not have been,
so I hold things tighter:
the small-getting-smaller of her
running with my daughter down the beach . . .

Jo Eades

It’s Wednesday and / again / I’m laying pages of newspaper on the kitchen table / tipping up the food waste bin /