A child’s coat There’s tiny me on a strip of concrete. There’s the tiny coat I’m wearing, fluffy white: the brightest spot in the image, this coat my mother says she loved, this coat my mother says was so well made, a gift from someone who had...

      Speaking in code I once heard a man speak in tongues, just sounds like words, but not words. He told us he was filled with the spirit. I once heard remuterations in the air, cirvivulating on the breeze, uncanny in their lisonulance; breathless...

      Ghost, Moth They want you out of this House of forgotten tea in which you are floating Like a calcium slip This house in which you yield As a sweep of onion skin In old dishwater Disgusted by yourself hollowed out In the flesh of an armchair An...

      On the Hill No-one has seen me outside the bungalow. I am a rumour behind windows that reflect the sky and reveal nothing of an indoor life. I could pretend there is an extensive lawn in front of me, leading down a gentle slope to a pleached hedge...

      Autumn A sea of firecrackers on spindly fingertips. The wind sails through harmonious foundations. A thunderclap, a secondment of wings, embossed leaves fall like burning fossils. It's the hour for nightingales.     Emma Jones is a...

      muted tethered i let her touch me without touching me (tears before bedtime) but (listening to the deep ache keeping the things that hurt close closed making space for kinder smotherings) i could never tell you friendship isn’t a consolation prize...

      Do you remember how we danced in the dark, the sky was still, the earth was breathing. After the guests left, after the wake, you stayed, and we stood close but not quite touching, until you took my arms and we swayed in time with the music of the...

      Pond life Take this pond, for example. Goldfish blow ellipses… you pause, breathe. The pond counts the beats: in for four, hold for seven. Lily pads float like Pac-men in a plant-based alternative to the game you wasted hours on as a kid. The pond...