Category: 2013

1 | 2   Sacrament   My village’s only common property is a single pistachio tree that belongs in a nursing home but we give her twenty-four-hour care in the spot in which she has always stood   We live on a diet of thistle stems and burdock roots and thus…

1 | 2   What I Saw One Day   An old man with Alzheimer’s bit by a rattler in his front yard   Freckled kid swinging on an old tire Rope gives way and he falls breaks his leg   I watch both events from my kitchen window   I…

Eternal vigilance   D went to register her dog and they asked “How old are you?” “What’s the dog to do with my age?” said D. The dog remains beyond the pale.   “Married?” the physio asked C as he filled in the form. C said: “Fixing my knee or…

1 | 2   Roots   Beside the loch, she left her bike unlocked, and now hopes.   She will need nine blankets tonight – the old schoolhouse has no curtains   or light. She has the red throat of love: the last kiss at the Bahnhof   pricks. Her tyre…

1 | 2   Buried at sea   Without your body to stretch out on straw turned so the feet point to the door, no chin to prop with the King James no chest on which to place a plate of salt –   Will all the looking glasses stay masked?…

Head on Side   Woman in pink:   Woman looking upwards Woman in a short skirt waxed legs sprayed orange Woman playing with the dishwater yellow gloves nostrils, pinched Woman throwing away letters holey knickers dead flowers. Woman, head on side, contemplating art     Woman in red:   Woman…

1 | 2   The back gate of Solway College   The view of the chapel is not even altered from where I’m standing.   The attack-magpie waits in the tree twisting its neck to see everything as it was   through a strange shaft of light opening onto our stucco…

1 | 2   Fencing   And in the coal cupboard you can hide filthy and quiet. Quietly beside the kauri chest, gold meshed the radio static fizzy and raspberry biscuits. The long road between us is eaten all up. We talk about things, her paintings (cough). Rows of roses oddly…

1 | 2   Waiting for a tsunami   The attic roof is sand-bagged, we hear loud shouting as echoes wake to the sun, and the bristling lips of earth float out of depth in the air   where a blindfold of warm velvet hides day, frees its comb to the…

1 | 2   Traffic patterns   I was trundling my recyclables in their special dark green plastic receptacle down to the local collection platform next to the telephone and internet connection pillar near the stormwater grate beside the gutter outside #23 Tilley when all the traffic on the highway stopped.…