Today’s choice

Previous poems

Alex Scarborough

 

 

 

Hiking

I measure distance in Spotify playlists
so I can’t be trusted with maps.
How long until this becomes
exhausting?

You pace out the metres and minutes,
you take three steps ahead as I want to ask
if the ridges in your face would soften
knowing you’d get there faster
without me.

Instead I point out the waterfall
pass you an earbud.

 

 

Alex Scarborough is a poet from Hertfordshire. He studied songwriting at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance and is currently working on his first poetry pamphlet. His work is forthcoming in Cacti Fur (February 2026).

Kate Noakes

If you follow faerie lights
that wisp where boardwalk
becomes trackway, make sure
you’re stocked with milk,
or bread and salt.

Mai Ishikawa

    Taxi I took shelter under a tree, where you also sheltered. You looked at me awkwardly, as if to say Excuse me before shaking your feathers – a tiny droplet landed on my cheek. Suspended, we held each other responsible for the silence. We listened to the...

Lue Mac

Sad how things expire before you work out
what they mean. Like earlier I was noticing
the rose petals on the path, all damp and slick,

Alice O’Malley-Woods

For the Peregrines of Offham Chalk Pit The quarry holds your eyrie like a grateful palm. You - indelicate gobber all gape and gum-pink circled in the beach white like a mouth stuck in wonder. O spit-shrieker coming back for yourself, tearing fur so diligently, never...

Lori D’Angelo

The cat puts his paw on my hair, and I think about
where we could go if we weren’t here. Maybe the
nail salon, which seems like a good destination for
kill time Saturdays.

Lucy Wilson

Dear Fish, you swam from life and gave your flesh; forgive me.
In your ice-tomb, your scales a rainbow of tiny glaciers, frozen in flight;
like you, I let myself get caught, sank my heart in a false sea.