Today’s choice
Previous poems
Janet Hatherley
In my cookery exam, we have to prepare a family meal
This is summer
and Mum can’t put out
her trot line with its hooks
because of swimmers
so I buy three mackerel
from the fishmonger.
I cycle to the school bus stop
one arm on the handlebar,
carrying my ingredients
in a square biscuit tin
under my other arm.
In the cookery room
I slit the fish open,
bright-eyed, translucent
green and silver,
tip the guts and
maroon hearts
into the bin.
I scrape off the scales
with a blunt knife,
place the fish under the grill.
On the plate
I pipe mashed potato
around them
in rosettes.
My cookery teacher is pleased.
I come first in the exam.
Lindsay McLeod Espinoza
Venus passed over the south node of the Moon today
Ilse Pedler
She offered up her linen bag to me, said
pick a shell my lady and I’ll tell your fortune
Sue Butler
Squirrels have beheaded all my parrot tulips
and the supermarket is out of chilli, also tabasco sauce.
Cormac Culkeen
the sun is a
white coin
lifted
from the sea
Maurice Devitt
Yes, you gave us your elegant hands
and capricious smile, but as I make my way
to the chiropodist this morning,
it’s your feet I’m thinking of . . .
Martin Ferguson
Pursue the facsimile
of the attendance sign;
here you must join the line.
Peter Branson
Emerge, from way beyond the pale, one day,
clenched feet an amulet about your wrist
Alice Huntley
carved from the tusk of my grandmother
I am learning how to remember
Bel Wallace
My dad is thinking geometrically,
eyes closed; he waves his arms