Dancing Can be done at any time, mathematically speaking. A child in the front row, she sees the Prince’s laddered tights. This opens up and widens her. In her grandparent’s house, at the end of a terrace, up a hill you get to through Gledhow Valley Woods, next to a parade where the green-grocer has straw on the floor, she sees an advert on … Continue reading Three poems by Linda Black
Three poems from Imagined Sons A Birthmother’s Catechism (September 11, 1986) What is the anniversary of loss? A national day of mourning Really now, what is the anniversary of loss? My mother and I watch TV well past her usual bedtime What is the anniversary of loss? Where the swan’s nest had been, widely scattered branches and some crumpled beer cans What is … Continue reading Three poems by Carrie Etter
Seven Horse Secrets The horse’s heart is a grand mansion of piston-firing chambers. A horse sees a world blurred in the two-tone flourish of the photo finish. Look into the amber planet of a horse’s eye and a refracted universe forms there. Horses turn the turf of an ever-moving, never-quite-touched earth beneath their hooves. Horses laugh at our expense; lips peeled, ivory-gravestone teeth bared, … Continue reading Two poems by Jane Commane
Recovery We’re sitting on a park bench comparing slacks and loafers (ankles). The coffee’s black, obviously, and Jennifer says You just don’t get this kind of life if you live South of the river. We all turn up our noses. Do you look like a pig or a bat? We agreed it was far better to be a bat. I wanted to tell them … Continue reading Three poems by Lamorna Elmer
Keys At 18, I wore a bunch of them –– pendants on a leather thong. I wanted secrets to keep, the jingle, the little teeth turning the pins, old tangible symbols. As if I might learn to belong by playing at being warder to a makeshift life: the front door to my first home, ‘Rockville’ (the only one with an actual name); the flat … Continue reading Three poems by Mark Granier
Familiar “When people I vaguely recognise come up to me at readings and tell they knew me a long, long time ago (with a knowing smile), I do worry. Where? When?” – Bernardine Evaristo I knew you in a past life, maybe more. Kathmandu, Spring 1634. We swam the Yangtze, 903 BC (it wasn’t really called that yet). … Continue reading Three poems by Alvin Pang
Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra (Dali, 1936) Having always used her music as a tool, a gift to stifle hurt in others, a niche into which she could stuff pansies or wallflowers, a grey to be drenched with peony or tangerine, she became pliable, perfectly responsive to circumstance, a kitten following its master, chase-and-nibble. At … Continue reading ‘Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra’ by Geraldine Clarkson
A Beginner’s Guide to the Formal and Informal Use of ‘You’ When asking strangers for directions, use the formal form of ‘you’. Use the familiar form with fishmongers and greengrocers, but the polite form with bakers and haberdashers. With any other shopkeeper use the familiar, unless you’ve already seen them that day and they happened to be wearing a hat. With waiters use the … Continue reading Three poems by Rosie Blagg
Seven and Ten My sister, seven, lay awake in the weeds. The fallow field near our house had reached a height of three feet, a haven for grasshoppers and mice. She wore a yellow cotton dress and once-white sandals; the weeds ensconced her. Running with a flimsy net after a butterfly, I tripped over her legs as I lunged, but she did not stir. … Continue reading ‘Seven and Ten’ by Carrie Etter
