Today’s choice
Previous poems
Chrissie Gittins
My Brother Teaches Me How To Open And Close A Door
When you’ve used one handle to open the door,
use the other handle to close it.
That way the draft from the open window
won’t whip it closed and wake everyone up.
Even now he still teaches me –
keep your phone safe from thieves,
protect your muscles and bones,
sprinkle ground eggshells around your tomatoes.
His arm is always around my shoulder –
as the garden birds abandon his feeders for insects,
as he searches for a recipe for his plentiful courgettes,
as he lies awake at night making lists and lists and lists.
Chrissie Gittins‘ collections are Sharp Hills (IDP), I’’ll Dress One Night as You (Salt) and Armature (Arc). She appeared with her fifth children’s poetry collection on BBC Countryfile. Her second short story collection was shortlisted for the Saboteur Awards. Her work has featured on BBCR4 and the Poetry Archive. She is a Hawthornden Fellow. @ChrissieGittins
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...
S Reeson
There is no evidence anywhere that Albert Einstein ever said the definition of insanity is ‘is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’ except there he is, all over the Internet, being attributed with having done exactly that.