Mrs Hitchcock Takes a Bath I’m not so sure about showers — if you must know it’s the sound how it rushes, pounding, drowning everything and, dear, sometimes — I know it’s probably only the pipes — but sometimes it screams so I’ll just take a bath...

      Mrs Yeats’ Love Letters from the Other Side Mrs Yeats slackens carefully in her comfortable front room. Perhaps her slow arm drags a lace antimacassar from a sofa back. Perhaps her lips part in an O. Mrs Yeats unfolds and sags. Where is Mr Yeats?...

    Surveillance She heard it again last night, a rattle wrapped in the rain, pebble-dashing the window. A scrabble outside her door, calling her name. Eyes peer through the letter box. Somebody moves her clothes, tears her magazines. She keeps watch at her...

      Forgiveness clay-sifting one wellyboot year to make him the pizza oven, I was forgiven, wading through the midges encrusted with sun- light sifting leaves & I seven or eight scoured the bank in slow flow fingers freeze beachspade hefted...

      Pond in June Among the lily-pads’ congested leaves, above the pond, white water-lilies flower, their yellow stamens in bright asterisks like fried eggs somehow learning origami and, coloured like a childish sun or star, unblinkingly each water-lily...

      Planting Fields In those days when we couldn’t touch each other— instead— we dug the earth the spacer we passed marked— the ideal measure— in black mark— tuber— here pass the spacer in sunlight or make another—wood with raw black—  no touch but we...

      A Force of Nature’s Personal Ad Deep calleth unto Deep, slim, gsoh, quintessence of natural affection, wltm similar, now in the radiant flower of youth and darkest death, from Howarth to Heathland or wheresoever is the soul’s longing. Lively and...

      My Lucky Cat My lucky cat waves at me through the day. Supposed to bring in wealth, it brings in none. You’d think that I would know the score by now. I’ve been through many so-called lucky charms. The Lincoln Imp brought me so much ill luck...

      Ritual To Ensure My Safe Return Home In the days before I leave I speak to the cat, explain that I must go away, specifying the number of days that she is to be left in charge. I tell her that she is being given a great responsibility to maintain...