Alex Mepham Alex Mepham is a writer and translator based in York, UK. Alex has received a Northern Writers Award, and has poems and translations appearing in Magma, The Stinging Fly, and Modern Poetry in Translation, among others. Website: amepham.carrd.co.

            Natalie Shaw No one liked the new rules but we thought they were good rules.With just the two of us left,we cartwheeled in, as was the rule.We had to say to everyonego awaygo away -we planned to swim nakedand keep the wave machine on all the time.If there had been music, it wouldhave sounded like this Natalie Shaw has … Continue reading We were in charge at the swimming pool

            Robin Park 1. I was christened Robin in Englishclass by my teacher Jeremy. I must have been (or become)bird-shaped that day: moulting down the edges of my before-name. I folded away my previous self until it fitonly in my mother’s mouth. 2. Jeremy must have created mebecause everyone says I do not look like anythingelse. … Continue reading Looking for Jeremy

            Meggie Royer When my great-grandmother survivedthe potato famine,she survived the exodusthat came with it.Blight upon blight.First came the dreams:clustered, gone. Spoiled.Eyes sprouting like tubersin the dusk. Dirt so black it shone.A fear of becoming marriedwhen you were already married.The dread of learning that living another yearrequired living another year.More is what passed down through the … Continue reading Eviction

            Alice Frecknall The scene starts in a bathroom:red between thighsshe’s laughing,It’ll look like a massacreby the time I’m done!Our bodies’ little rituals of emptying.This isn’t quite how I pictured it‘love’me trying toadjust to my own hot blood too busy to noticethe ache of it taking hold, my fingerprints’ quick-drying stains.Showering,the salty film of her/mefalls offmy … Continue reading Everything is wipe-clean-friendly

            Luís Costa there is not muchI can tell, truly.I am swimming with my clothes onand it may appear that I’m breathingbut I’m not.I’ve just gotten used to the usualnessof it all. the misplaced sadness,a karaoke booth (the lights are blue),my coffee table becoming a graveyardfor fish-shaped soy saucecontainers. there is, of course, the glaciergrowing in … Continue reading elegy

            Sue Rose א (ah-lef) King over breath, markof silence in the line,aleph is mighty, mute,giving nothing away.Shaped from the oxin the fields, boxyhead, taciturn stare,it wears its crownof horns lightly, seals airin the universe, heatin the year, lungsin the body. It’s soft,this god letter, a breezekissing the scriptit precedes with life.It splays like the Xmarking … Continue reading Aleph

            Mary Mulholland It was not long after water flooded your flat.jewelled the walls, like there was no roof –the builders said leaks always cause most damage.You'd had enough and moved to America,as if you'd be dry there. A year later I flew overfor your wedding. You fell for her becauseshe had a dog in her … Continue reading Engaged

            Spencer Wood the slow burlesqueof a Hull coastalsummer all flatand bright peelinga silk layer onlyto replace it withfleece we walkour desires alongthe edge pastmosaic saltmarsha closed lighthouseand deep gorsestrung with veilsuntil we reachthe pointwhere one of uswants the seaand the other staysamong the wrackand does the shorethink it’s donesomething wrongwhen the tidegoes out andhow longwill … Continue reading Spurn

            Julia Webb (1) that vile orange squash / mum stored on the floor / of the kitchen cupboard / the neon sludge of sediment / collecting at the bottom / of each ridged bottle / its artificial taste / like battery acid / orange but not orange / panic in a glass (2) as the … Continue reading as orange as