Today’s choice

Previous poems

Sarah James/Leavesley

 

 

 

A mouthful of stones

The sister I don’t have
has pockets bulging
with silver-foiled chocolate
and popping candy, rustling-
wrapped strawberry surprises
and infinite packets
of unopened love hearts.

She leaves me the pocket
full of stones, ones my mum
won’t be able to smooth

to marble or polish like sea glass.
Ones my dad will throw
to the waves in hope,
only for them to sink
instead of skim.

My parents will weigh me down
with rocks to stop
my flying off too.

I’ll learn to weigh myself
against her
and kiss the cold water.

 

 

Sarah James/Leavesley is a prize-winning poet, fiction writer, journalist and photographer. Latest collections include Darling Blue (Indigo Dreams), an ekphrastic book-length poetry narrative which won the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize 2024, and Blood Sugar, Sex, Magic (Verve Poetry Press). Website: http://www.sarah-james.co.uk.

Jane Spray

I’m just an ordinary dryad
not like fancy Eurydice   with her sun god father
keep things simple   I say   I don’t have her dilemmas

Paul Stephenson

The poem of the mask disguises meaning.
The poem of the diet lost seven words.

The poem of the snowman melted.
The poem of the invisible man.

Emma  Farmer

Your face was on a bus pass,
your hair falling around your face like a curly straw,
pressed in a puddle between the Queen’s old face
and an Aldi receipt for slippers and chicken.

Carson Wolfe

I owned a g-string like this,
the back connected by a rhinestone butterfly.

Starved myself at school to save
my dinner money, bought it from Poundland.