I don’t know why you bother with poetry Vlad mutters as he adjusts the current in the magnets, forcing them to rhyme with each other.

Today’s operative on the ohrwurm shift
has hacked the WiFi password
in the ear canal and now I’m looping back
endlessly to a misheard lyric . . .

Laid down, his upraised face is
White – offputting – on a plumped pillow.

“The all-consuming passion
is rarely found
more than a recipe
for misery,”
you read

He appears like a paper bag blown onto the feeder,
punching his beak time and again into the peanuts.

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

My father stitched an evening with current ripples
spill over rocks and shadows gather at the corner,

i was standing
very still
my mind

    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...