Didn't he He didn't make much of it. Gritted his teeth. Put his hands on his knees and caught his breath a little longer when he set down...

Fox Fires A little known way to trace the history of a fire is to examine the hairs on a fox's back. Historians deny reports of a vixen...

A Game Mama runs to the bus-stop. She tells me to pretend she's dead. It's a game, she says, feet clickety-clacking like a train. Not...

Professor Arnold's Picnic Olive, Lettuce, Beetroot, Tuna, Nut, Ther- mos of a fine French ennui, the sun going down. Thunder. Steve...

So Long Don't mind the clatter: it's my infant father, trailing a tin-can train from room to room through a draughty Dundee parsonage –...

Photograph by John Cairns Bloody Ill Flu-ridden for two days now, I'm glad of the carpet; like Atlas, a shoulder to lean on. Behind me,...

Perfection is like Death We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from...

Here, once again, is Fran's introduction: About the poems It is not easy to explain. I owe more to Roddy Lumsden than to any other figure...

A poem is like a hedgehog After Jacques Derrida’s essay "Che cos'è la poesia?" because it sashays across the road under its thatch of...

Girl as Bike The stethoscope answered in fluent Italian: not a heartbeat, but the humming cadence of a Campagnolo crankset. My father...

The Jungle waits Outside, my Best-Beloved Another zoo, another information board, another wild encounter talk. I'm old and neurotypical....

School Holiday I'm not allowed to keep dangerous things. I kill with my ribbon, my hairpin. Wish I could climb the fence. I creep there...

Author's note Baba Yaga is a witch from Slavic folktale. Sometimes seen as dangerous and violent, she is also a healer and a wise woman,...

clearly we woke to foghorns loud and insistent in the channel. much too loud I observed and the possibility of quiet horns opened up...

a poem for evenings and tears, written and rewritten liminal light the sky breaking a cataract of rain and the wind...

Alarm 4 a.m. and he's at it again, yelling against pale day. He feels the weight of the sun. He's all erect; his throbbing red comb is...

A leaf Light as light, the ghost of a tree aflame, the fire etched in flat tin, waiting for warmth to move into the silent woods. Muddy...

Sitting by the Pond, a Great Weight Lifts with the Summer Breeze We must have been at home in our bodies. Boundless as angels in the dark...

Lucky Foot We were mid-sentence and taking shortcuts to her folks' place when she slammed on the brakes. I was thinking my luck's...

Nikos Coffee-shop, Athens, 1976 Ephie approved of Niko's. Here you met a better class of Communist: Maoists and Trotskyists. There were...

Granulated Sometimes I wonder if your precision, passion, sense of knowing, comes from within. Or if it matters. I saw transcendence...

The Banana Raffle Come to think of it, she didn't tell us who'd got hold of the banana, or how, or if a neighbourhood spiv was involved,...

Thoughts of a Grumpy Examiner Lots of people will be marking lots of exam scripts soon. As always, I expect I will be struck by how the...

…in the company of children… (13th visitation) It might be that slow erasure is their way, something like...