Vanessa Napolitano In early morning the motel room is purple droop,as if we are renting a bruise.Sunrise is a livid blush, mauve of a trapped limb,corners of the room like the underside of an eye,my skin outside the sheets reflecting, parma violet chalky skyand the carpet, all heather and gorse,smelling like soap tastes.It stretches in … Continue reading Colour Scheme

            Jack Emsden rain on the boneof my ribcage glisteningi loosenmy hair in buncheslisten for the catslinking into morningto drop the body of a mouseunder the portrait of a hacksawin return i paint a carouselon the car park concretethere is violenceand there is birdsongand then there are ruleswe inventto pass the timea shallow pondon the unmown … Continue reading i come to you barefoot

            Zain Rishi on bonfire night you would never catch usdown petersfield road with the rest of hall greenburning that wooden man / we had better ideasor perhaps just smaller ones like holdingsparklers up to our faces as the skyfound a rhythm between the clatter and glow / it's funnyhow allah always finds us / we … Continue reading The Bird

            Sophia Georghiou She never stood a chance. My first doll,snatched from her cellophane-veiled box,strip-searched, judged guilty on the spot.I can still picture her limbsfloating around the bath, the blackclump of synthetic hair coiled beneath my pillow.Her face felt-tipped all red and brown,the locker full of names I gave herafter girls I envied at school.Years later, … Continue reading Doll

            Richard O'Brien God’s own goth orb,good or not -old gong,worn tooth,gloom-bowl,spook glow ofrooms long lost -drop by slow,doomy droplooms lowon top of Oslo Richard O'Brien's pamphlets include A Bloody Mess (Valley Press) and The Dolphin House (Broken Sleep). He is an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at Northumbria University, and the winner of a 2017 … Continue reading Blood Moon

            Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana       after Kimiko Hahn Unlike rats, Alex does not establish well-worn paths through people’s gardens, although she knows full well that some choose to do so. Unlike rats, Alex does not chase her mate in circles around the lawn, although sometimes she does go round in circles on the telephone with ‘you know who’. … Continue reading Learning from a Mischief

            Debmalya Bandyopadhyay someplace something breaks my mother’s eyes two spoonfuls of wateran ant carrying the scent of salt to its family soon they will gather a slackjawed clothesline on a smooth marble floor with a petal or twosomething said out loud its brass beats on the world’s softest eardrums the forecast of demise is a conspiracy about … Continue reading Biopsy

            Eamonn Shanahan Boy from town meets girl from village he’s neither malicious nor intelligentbelieves in all the conspiraciesmy son says she a crazy bitch who hates the villagemy son says the mother of the boy is a close friendof a close friend of my wife boy makes girl pregnantdoesn’t tell his mother when girl is … Continue reading Young People in Provincial and Unprosperous Circumstances

            Aishvarya Arora my sister avoids me. i can’t deliver his penchant for silence shelled onto the ends of crass jokes. dressed in sensible pullovers he makes you crack. the yoke of the laugh. i crack before i ever deliver the punchline. even after i tell her loss makes all things grow beautiful, my mother donates … Continue reading i look like my brother

            Clara-Læïla Laudette on my aunt’s face is stapled acrosswith stitch lines. Her husband put it there.In my gran’s bones a want of calcium:my grandad drew it out, ten times,maybe more. Now she limpson the gnawed pistons of her hips.My cousins who are boyssit in a silent row of radiant phones.They sit and food is brought … Continue reading The long scar