Kexin Huang A mooncake isn't just a moonas a cackle or a moon trappedin a case or a laughter too roundedto roll into a box or too octagonalto be a Chinese porcelain tearin an English-speaking museumor too yellow to be blue at allor too blue to be celebratedin a Chinese supermarket in Londonor a childhood … Continue reading Mooncake

            Ollie O'Neill I too have mistaken my good handfor a slammed door. Carried my own blood. When they asked where? I was too tired, tryingto hammer a nail into a ghost, to think about specifics. I’m aware I was a girl once but I feltmore like a choir, a chorus of murmuring. I didn’t say … Continue reading Little Proof

            Alicia Byrne Keane On Camden StreetI think I’m seeing that thing            I’ve seen a few times: when the wind lifts                        a pigeon-carcass wing, animatingwhat remains unstuck by blood.             With less distance, I realise            it’s an umbrella. Leopard-skin patterned,                        the dull pink and black of an evening dress. It’s the flutter of spoke and panel,            a seeming leap from … Continue reading Outcomes

            Philip Gross The first of Springand all the town's magnolias have set their fuses.Lit their small tight pilot lights of pink.Then a pause before one day, street by street andonly slightly out of sync,they flare into the arms of the wind.Grand arias of self-abandonment,a performance that’s its own applause,bouquets showering the stage… till there it … Continue reading All the Magnolias

            Nathaniel King the birds are tiny eco systemsthat remind me of nothing in particularour dishes all drown themselveswhile we’re scraping little cylindrical sporesfrom the bathroom ceiling with a de-icerwondering how the cat will take itwhen one of us doesn’t come back from the vetsmy beachless body installing an art nouveau lampin the basement of someone’s … Continue reading Sensitivity Training

            Amy McCauley I’m thinking about Anne Sexton’sawful rowing toward godand how a poem is an accident waiting to happenand how I don’t believe anybodydoesn’t want to be understood and howpoets love to say and how – and how – and howastonishedconfusedembarrassed I am by the fact of being aliveand how unnervingly smitten the world isand … Continue reading Rat Inside

            Mark A. Hill In the middle ages, the word topaz referred to any yellow gemstone,In modern times, it denotes only the silicate.Topaz is referred to in Exodus in the King James Bible,A few moments before you fold it up and nod. Beget is an archaic word the past is begot and the past participle is … Continue reading Topaz

            Tom Blake I have never trusted apples apples don’t inspire trust the world is green the world is red I have chopped up many a thing in my life some hard some soft I read the news through the window of a Radio Rentals in Luton town centre it was after an away game and … Continue reading What Had Ye For Supper Lord Donal’ My Son

            Tom Jenks our father’s ghost haunts the central reservation On the stretch of dual carriageway near the multiplex,amongst the low shrubs and dull grey pines. Why didn’t hechoose one of his favourite places, like the ice rink, or thewax museum, or the toffee apple stand at the petting zoo?But then he always loved being in … Continue reading Our Father’s Ghost

            Julian Dobson Sallows be thy name. Sallow as willow, as salix,sallow as sickly, saliva. This spongeof a hill, every footstep a font.Low cloud, stiff breeze. No shelter.Salvation? It is not worth the detour. Yoke My yoke is easy. The first few yardsare abominably marshy. A track is a streamby the wall: follow it, wade in … Continue reading A Lake District pilgrimage in the steps of Alfred Wainwright