Today’s choice
Previous poems
Kathleen Gray
Liberty
When she asked what I wanted
to be when I grew up, my mother
laughed when I said ‘free’
She’s been dead for more than
thirty years – not much freedom
in her kitchen-sink life
She settled for snatching time out,
pausing with that dreamy look,
that secret smile,
knife in one hand, half-scraped
carrot for Thursday’s soup
in the other, oblivious
to me spying from the kitchen
door, wondering where she
escaped to and if one day
she’d decide to take off
her apron, leave us free to
cook our own soup.
Kathleen Gray is Scottish by birth, French by adoption. Her poems have been published in various literary magazines, including New Feathers, Drawn to the Light, The Alchemy Spoon, London Grip, Poetry Scotland and Causeway. She lives in Paris
Oenone Thomas
Because I don’t know any other way
I replace my left hand
with a hook, my feet
with jackhammers, both
my eyes with spangled
mirror balls.
Adele Evershed
Some Things My Mother Forgot to Teach Me (Before She Died)
A while ago I saw this prompt on Instagram
though I added ‘before she died’
because mine did—long before
anyway, I made a list
Sally Jenkins
Funny how Year 8 is doing bones
now, of all the weeks. In the prep room
we strip flesh off chicken wings
Chris Hardy
Memento Vivere We lived here once. The rain we heard fell everywhere. Silence except the wind across the ground. It’s best to keep quiet. Words are like dead seeds, they vanish when they’re said. * New Year’s Eve without stars or...
Siobhan Logan
There’s something wrong with the sky
it’s the colour of a bruise and smells
of burnt toast. Do you hear that noise?
Someone’s shredding the blue
Alex Searle
Something started you to wake,
Leaving sockprints in the parquet
H.J. Thomas
We ate it leaning against the rail
above the harbour –
black cherry,
melting down the cone
Stephen Keeler
Among the joys of love was when we got
our first apartment on a boulevard
above the trams and tree-tops and the wires
that cut the street like tangram puzzles and
Khairina Anindya, Genevieve Beech
‘Khair’
At the feet
of al-Ka‘ba
you asked for a daughter.
‘BIRTHLIGHT’
You are ordinary
to the teenager on the bus,
the doctor at our six-week check.