Today’s choice
Previous poems
Leigh-Anne Hallowby
You used to be shorter
When we first came here two seasons ago
You were barely as high as my hip
Now you can look me right in the eye
It’s almost impossible to believe
You’re not quite as tall as Giannis
But you hope that one day you can
Jump like him
Until then, I’ll chant defence with you
Take you to the park
Return balls in the rain
I’ll watch as you practice your shots
Talk tactics with you every day
And when you get older
We’ll still be in the stands
Foam fingers for hands
Because it’s such a beautiful game.
Leigh-Anne Hallowby is a poet from North East England. She likes striding up hills with a hot flask, and a notebook in her pocket. She’s tried to dunk a basketball, but just doesn’t quite make it.
Tanya Joseph
I know others blossom
but I vomit ectoplasm,
and squaring the corners of my bed,
the nurse reminds me I’m not dying.
Lucy Heuschen
It is known: a woman like that
brings evil on board.
Carolyn Oulton
Heat on the window
baking my face like a biscuit.
I move some hair, look over
at moss and narcissi, in a pot –
Jennifer A. McGowan
You have buried your mother and put
a memorial bench on a high hillside where
the wind blows sunsets straight through
and it’s always better to wear something warm.
Matt Bryden
You used to wind yourself in curtain turning taut,
look down at your feet, pirouette
as the fabric hugged you in.
James Coghill
the undershrub, shored up,
stakes its waspish claim,
its hereabouts
Peter Bickerton
The gull
on the meadow
taps her little yellow feet
like a shovel-snouted lizard
dancing on a floor of lava
Lydia Harris
ask this place
ask the silver day
the steady horizon
the self-heal the buttercup
the hard fern in the ditch
ask the bee and the tormentil
Seán Street
Dogs in spring park light
pulled by intent wet noses
through luminous grass