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.
Bel Wallace
My dad is thinking geometrically,
eyes closed; he waves his arms
Sarah Crowe
they gave me the cold
cap to stop my chemo
hair falling out
Daniel Dean
A beastly man swallowing leeks. His throat
Is dirt, and yet his ghost could sit with Raphael
Lesley Burt
a conch found in hot white sand
on the shoreline at Sanur Beach
a Fibonacci whorl
among morning offerings
Annie Acre
i am sun-shot / green-beamed / stem-steep /
hands cupfuls of heartlines / conjuring water
Jennifer Cole
take your wedding ring
or it might get “disappeared”
Eithne Longstaff
On the road to Belfast today, I failed
to recognise my father. I saw a flamingo
by the Tamnnamore turn off, but paid
little regard as it took off…
Mark O’Connor
At half a tonne in weight
It was like the anchor –
Michael Mintrom
They lie deep in a forest, wounds
unseen, unhealed. Further back,
an escarpment with dark scars.