Today’s choice

Previous poems

Jacob Mckibbin

 

 

 

weeks after being stabbed

my brother saw his attacker
at a petrol station
my brother was alone &
did not get out of the car
even in the ambulance
my brother said he wasn’t scared
even when the white bathtowel
we pressed against the stab wound
soaked up so much blood
it had its own heartbeat
my brother told the police
guarding his hospital bed
at first he thought
he was only being punched
even cut skin doesn’t want to believe
in the existence of knives
even before the guilty plea
my brother said he wouldn’t go to court
my brother is more likely to share a cell
with someone who would kill him
than to admit the person
who tried to kill him
had scared him

 

Jacob Mckibbin is a poet and writer from Oxford. He has had work published in several magazines including The Rialto and Oxford Poetry.

Roger Allen

      AFTER YOU HAVE GONE Morning moves with tempered sound. A heel turns by the green gate. The alley setts rest in purple curves. Some night seems to have been left here. Pots of sweet herbs are placed to fill the yard with subtle scent. Somewhere a...

Jacob Burgess Rollo

      Jacob Burgess Rollo is a poet and prose writer based in Dorset, his work is featured in From the Lighthouse and Avant Cardigan, a zine he founded with friends. He has an English Literature BA from Durham and is going on to study for a master's in...

Ruth Lexton

It is late at night and the kettle is boiling,
a quire of steam fanning out in the white kitchen
you are holding me as if I were your girl again