Today’s choice
Previous poems
Oenone Thomas
Because I don’t know any other way
I replace my left hand
with a hook, my feet
with jackhammers, both
my eyes with spangled
mirror balls.
I raise my right hand, and
in its palm, I roll another’s
choice of dice. I stud my scalp
with stars, stripe my cheeks
and lips in welts.
I form the phrase how dare you
from hot tacks and nails, I fire it up
into the sky’s great
vacancy. It is no longer
a question.
Oenone Thomas is a writer, child psychotherapist, and chocolatemaker. She was Poet in Residence, Cuckmere Pilgrim Path, 2024/25. Her collection from this adventure, Self-Portrait as Scallop Shell, was published last summer.
Mai Ishikawa
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Lue Mac
Sad how things expire before you work out
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Alice O’Malley-Woods
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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.
Amirah Al Wassif
The God I know works as a baker in a local shop.
From time to time, I see him feeding the kittens bread crumbs soaked in milk.
Cliff McNish
Heaven For starters, the standard works everyone gets: three trumpets blown in unison; your name acclaimed to the galactic hegemony of stars; plus assorted angels with ceramically smooth hands (the nail-work!) casting wholesale quantities of petals (flowers of the...
Paul Stephenson
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Holly Winter-Hughes
You stand behind me / catch my eye / take the snatch of silver