Category: Past issues

Tongueprints for Great Grandma Catherine and her mother Mary Ultima Thule: a glimpse of Muckle Flugga and a kinswoman’s welcome. Tresta, Trondra, Northmavine Fetlar, Uyeasound, Gutcher, Yell Sullum Voe, Girlsta, Mousa, Unst. One-way roads wi passin bays: on da scattald, hedder’s flooerin. Peerie, plantiecrub, tushkar, trow, dulskit, etterskab, fogrie, haaf,…

The moment of joining After a long day of driving past empty dairy factories and small towns with family associations, he chose a tree for his mother; a European tree he didn’t know the name of, but felt she would have liked. Thinking of her ashes as containing trace elements…

The door Every morning something is on the doorstep – a cat, a flower, a bottle of milk. Last night there was a wind that violently swept the street but respectfully left the step undisturbed. A small oasis. A still life. A bicycle is coming down the street. The bell…

Loving our kids I’d wrap my arms around you and sing in your ear a song about a frog dancing in a pool. I’d play my guitar to you, my fingers small frogs dancing on the strings, the strings become the legs of a cicada strumming against a brown shell…

Lost in translation He has learnt the word in English. Rabbit. He points at the book, says in his thick accent, ‘Rabbit.’ It is freezing cold. There is frost on the window. ‘Rabbit’ comes out in a cloud of smoke. ‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s not a rabbit.’ She points at…

Justine There’s no point trying to stop your Ugg boots from scuffing on the ground, it’s just the nature of Ugg boots. Anyways there’s no hurry. You’re thinking about those Black Sabbath lyrics and him singing in a metal falsetto in the garage by the beer fridge. One hand on…

An Ear for Post-Impressionism I always thought you loved me, by the way you stroked my lobe. I heard your heart beat bounce and the flash flood of art – aerial blood: the circular of your life, my life, our symbiosis. But how could I have known you could hear…

Those things you don’t understand We gather on the roof of the museum to open a shed – actually two: one red the other yellow – members of a family of sheds by Ronnie van Hout. I’ve met some of the others. There’s one too small to stand in, a…

Suddenly the Lake (after Rosalie Gascoigne) You stroll the galleries of reconfigured road signs, soft drink crates which are birds, maps, more signs of other signs, yellow and black monuments to the AA, directions for driving anywhere you ever wanted to go. They are the hills above a dump in…

Freestyle Anna doesn’t want to dive she never does but that’s the rule. Me and Fale we curl our toes around the edge of the pool and watch as our spit lands on the water it always goes like this as we wait for the signal. Jimmy says the man…