Some afternoons Some afternoons I take her out in the car. We go fast. Fast, with the windows down, the wind winding its fingers round our hair, its palms pressed hard against our cheeks. I drive to feel the brief unfastening from this life of close-knit tasks. She laughs at the wind, at the … Continue reading A poem by Kate Scott
Author: And Other Poems
‘In Kew Gardens’ by Angela Topping
In Kew Gardens Start at the pagoda, as good a place as any – there must be a beginning somehow. The garden is peopled with trees in gregarious knots shadowing the land, neighbourly and kind. Past the Japanese gateway, that’s not for now. Travel grass paths to bluebells: their illiterate heads, empty of clappers, … Continue reading ‘In Kew Gardens’ by Angela Topping
A poem by Chris Raetschus
June 1968 I bring him groceries and news. “Like the Red Cross,” he says. I smile, hand him tea, sliced cake, watch him stir his memories in the mug. Then he tells me, as if I have never heard it before, of the Somme , of his friend Jack, how he lay below the … Continue reading A poem by Chris Raetschus
A poem by Kona Macphee
Poem for Lily Song For Chris, i.m. Lily When January takes up residence in curt encampments all about the Summer Palace, daily the shield of ice across the lake is thickened by another ward of frost; and though the fishermen on wide-legged stools each morning re-inflict the round incisions night has thinly healed, … Continue reading A poem by Kona Macphee
‘Communion’ by Kaddy Benyon
Communion You looked like a scuffed child-bride of Christ, a ghost in broderie anglaise, a new bangle on your play-bruised wrist, your nan’s crucifix stuck to the jam stain on your chest. It was hot as you posed for photos: boys pinching; girls hissing their secret wounds. What you remember is not the thorn-shaped burn … Continue reading ‘Communion’ by Kaddy Benyon
A poem by Barbara Smith
One of Each You were nearly Nemain and Macha for a while, as I reversed into the idea of two not one. I turned to books to see how to deal with motherhood again. Born in the hot-house of Gemini, Dáire, you were all ready for the bull’s-eye. Small, dark, but sturdy like an … Continue reading A poem by Barbara Smith
‘The Moment’ by Julie Mellor
The Moment On the Penistone train derailment, February 1916. When I look up at the seamed sky, the black teeth of girders, the cracks of fresh air, I think this is not an accident, but a moment of refusal, a point I can look on and describe in bricks of words, then knock down again … Continue reading ‘The Moment’ by Julie Mellor
‘Longing’ by Shirley Wright
Longing Breath on the back of my neck, fingertips that slip away, footsteps behind me fading the more I strain to hear, felt as a shiver in the gut, the gravitational pull of planets, a gene lurking in strands of DNA like a song bound to endless repeats. I catch you in unsuspecting mirrors, a … Continue reading ‘Longing’ by Shirley Wright
‘The Ferryman’ by Kim Moore
They were waiting on the shore, some with mobiles in their hands, the words they thought they'd have the chance to say sitting round and smooth like stones inside their mouths, some on hands and knees, feeling for spectacles, eyes tight against the sun, not realising the dark had gone, and some sit on chair-shaped … Continue reading ‘The Ferryman’ by Kim Moore
‘Winding the Clocks’ by Carole Bromley
Winding the Clocks Each night you do the rounds, like a lover who keeps faith after the loved one’s gone; I guess it’s at the root of all you do. I’m thinking this as you set the alarm, lock the front door, hoist the pendulum; it falls to you now to wind the grandfather … Continue reading ‘Winding the Clocks’ by Carole Bromley
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