The Night I See Myself The car is a parcel of breath; the road unrolling like a bolt of black crêpe. I drive like I’m in green-screen and nothing outside is real: all I can see is a false moon crowing at my shoulder, and a curd of light behind the hills where the town and the hospital lie. Sometime soon I must dress myself … Continue reading Two poems by Sally Douglas
Yellow Sheets Afterwards, I swaddle you in plastic sheets; yellow and crumpled as an old raincoat, they will protect you from the rain. Today is the first and last day. I will not look at your face, tiny and still-pink, I know it will accuse me. But I see your little fingers, cold and stiff as icicles in the morning air. It’s better this way. … Continue reading Two poems by Louisa Adjoa Parker
Renny – 1961 Even then, I knew my performance as a primrose wouldn’t impress. But as soon as the bell clanged we played wild animals. We’d be at it on the floor, some crawling on all fours, others writhing, all of us snarling or growling. I guessed he’d notice my sabre-tooth-tiger impression: I knew how to act long fangs, had the prowl off to a … Continue reading Two poems by Rebecca Gethin
Tracking the wolf after Cormac McCarthy the boy his brother their father (not yet awake) the horse the dog behind the gate watching him go the she-wolf the snow the blood the gun the traps the calves aborted before term pale unborn … Continue reading ‘Tracking the wolf’ by Wendy Klein
At twilight she is still sitting with the book in her hand, staring through the window, looking for snow. Have you seen my horse? she says, eyes wild with loss. I smile, brush her hair. She purrs. She cups my face. I know you, she whispers, have you stolen my horse? I cover her hands with mine and we stare a while, nose … Continue reading ‘The Pale Horse’ by Lesley Ingram
In a disused game-keeper’s hut A stream dashes past in a deep cleft. From inside, all you hear is the waterfall. Dark as the garden at night, a mesh covers the grimy window. No-one will guess. She sweeps the dust, runs outside to gasp. It settles back like the things she’s heard said. She pokes feathers she’s found into cracks between planks. Outside, a jay … Continue reading ‘In a disused game-keeper’s hut’ by Rebecca Gethin
Among Men There are a few originals left – a small curmudgeon Of diehards, one might say. Life has put something Sharp in our water or something shaky beneath Our pale, Tupperware skin. We’re not complaining. That’s just the way of it. No hand-holding, thank God, But we are interested in each other – the way old Walruses might care who has slipped … Continue reading Two poems by Ron Carey
One afternoon for Chris One afternoon he actually died during one of his anecdotes, one which he’d started in one village, and had persisted in so that by the time they’d reached the next one he was still going, having taken a tangent at some crossroads and kept on with the tale, so that it had begun to defy clausal analysis as well as … Continue reading A poem by Bill Greenwell
Child The field has drowned and turned into a tideless sea. Flower shapes rise from a toddler’s broken ribs. Beyond the head of a loch a broken swing hangs from a tree. His body bruises in the dark, he has learned to be quiet. Clouds drag their shadows over hills, ridges, fields of sheep. His eyes are the colour of fists, he has learned … Continue reading ‘Child’ by Marion McCready
A Short Manhattan Lullaby, 1939 after S. Olds I see them tarting themselves up for the party where they’ll meet; she post-divorce from her approved-of Jewish ex, and all set to become a successful playwright. I see her pucker up for the brightest lipstick, slip her feet into lethal stilettos, bat blackened eyelashes in the gilded mirror, see it return her appreciative glance. He’s … Continue reading A poem by Wendy Klein
