Today’s choice
Previous poems
Kate Leah Hewett
Web
Sorry, but I’ve stopped
cleaning the windows.
Or I guess I’m not cleaning
that one pane of the window
that looks in over the living room.
I’m leaving it for the spider
with the round body like a
peanut and the striped legs
who has made her web there
and who I can sit and watch
spinning thread for constant
little repairs that never stop.
Our year started with a slow worm
gleaming up at us from the wet grass.
What’s that an omen for?
Now it’s later and things have
changed again and well anyway
I’m leaving the web in peace.
It helps to feel there’s a part to play
and that I am playing it.
Kate Leah Hewett (she/her) is a poet, writer, cultural worker, gardener and occasional DJ. She lives on the edge of the Peak District with her wife and daughter. Her work has been published in One Hand Clapping, Sinister Wisdom, Yes, Poetry and elsewhere. She has performed in Yorkshire, New York and on Basilica SoundScape’s Poet Trolley, and has collaborated with musicians including Harkin and Tim Mislock. Hire her to DJ your gay wedding at https://www.handmirror.
Julie Sheridan
They married in a chapel of black steel
bars, tethered up their feathers to serve as
stained glass. . .
Maxine Sibihwana
here, water does not run. instead it
sits obediently in old plastic containers
Lesley Curwen
Her feet snagged in a cleverly-placed net
my sister waits for him to untangle her,
to hold her head still between thick fingers . . .
From the Archives: In Memory of Jean Cardy
Denizens Mice live in the London Tube. A train leaves and small pieces of sooty black detach themselves from the sooty black walls and forage for crumbs in the rubbish under the rails that are death to man. You can’t see their feet move. They...
Tina Cole
Mr. Pig modelling his best Sunday suit of farmyard smells,
flees from the cook’s cleaver to find himself a sow.
Ellora Sutton
My heart is breaking, so I’m setting up my new Wonder Oven.
The waft of toxicity as I run it on empty for ten minutes
is a welcome distraction.
Erin Poppy Koronis
Naked feet rush
over cold pebbles,
phone-torches light
our pathway to the sea.
Bob King
The first wristwatch was first worn
in 1810, despite what old turn-it-up
Flintstones episodes might have you
believe.
Brandon Arnold
Alone, I drive along the midnight, winter road. My left hand at the 12 o’clock position of the steering wheel. And I coast. I let out the day’s long breath, which started out today as a sigh.