Today’s choice
Previous poems
Janet Hatherley
The night before their wedding, Dad tells Mum two things
I.
He’s ten years older than he’d said, which makes him
twenty-eight years older, not eighteen.
It’s a bad blow. What’s done can’t be undone. Mum’s only choice
is a hostel for unmarried mothers.
She puts on a brave face—
better than finding out at the registry office.
II.
He’s a Russian Jew, came to England when he was seven,
his family fleeing through the night in a horse-drawn carriage.
Mum’s intrigued, doesn’t know much about Jewish people
or Russia, imagines a trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Years later, I discover escaping a pogrom in the Ukraine
is his father’s story.
Dad was born in Nottingham.
Janet Hatherley’s pamphlet, What Rita Tells Me, and collection, On the road to Cadianda, were published by Vole in 2022 and April 2024. She has poems in several magazines, including Under the Radar, Culture Matters, Ink Sweat & Tears. She won 2nd prize in Enfield competition, 2023 and was placed first in Vole anthology, 2024.
Hilary Hares
The Crofton Road home team play football with the moon
They have no kit to speak of but compensate
with unshakeable belief they’ll ace the cup.
Sue Finch
The moon is a Punch in the sky.
A boy is carrying a bruise.
And nobody is talking to either of them
about ordinary things.
Heather Holcroft-Pinn
These things I know,
and in knowing, can do . . .
Ruth Higgins
You wrestle the car seat’s five-point harness,
scrabble for a foothold in the new life.
Olive M Ritch
We Need to Talk about Shoes
The right shoes
for work, party, funeral.
Kathryn Anna Marshall
Grandad keeps pigeons and canaries
in the same cage. He has never hurt me. He probably could . . .
Cindy Botha
That way a river crimps eddies in its skin
is this matter of my unreliable breath.
Colin McGuire
You’d come in the front door
and whistle, I’d be upstairs
and whistle back
Gerry Stewart
In My Last Phone Call Did I say it looks like rain? I meant the sky is black with a thirst only crying can quench, clouds smothering the hills. Did I say this was my home? It was a mistake. The walls are collapsing even as I paint myself into a...