Bra Fitting, Mayfair I wonder if this might be Lingerie Oz: Toto, I don’t think we’re in Marks & Spencer anymore. Behind the cubicle's...

third world birds how lucky some birds must be to fly at whim – i, though eager to fly to him, must gather more than my limbs to go:...

Rauhnächte / Twelve Nights Although times are thin, this time between the years is the thinnest; a blue creak of snow, the lucky print of...

New Year Ritual, Seaford Head Time is massing in these red-stained cliffs, riven & leaning, with only a bluff of icy air to resist the...

Back On The Sun Can you see the earth, mister? Nice, unbroken soil. Though the sun beats it with her fists every morning, strains it...

Portrait of a Cypriot Family Four generations. That thing that has never forgiven us lay there the entire winter like an undisturbed...

Photograph by Laura Veres Ice When mother was beating me, she locked the bathroom door and started to run water. It seemed to take so...

Photograph by Kev Howard The Red String Frost on the rooftiles; the low afternoon tongues the grooves. Pleasure, tell me again, twice...

Bleasdale Sometimes I remember paragliders pushing off from high up on Parlick, into spluttering bluster and walloping rain, as my eyes...

Photograph by Tom McKinnell Narrow I place both my feet into one of your shoes the act surprisingly intimate, shy, like the first time...

Nest You were never keen on flowers. Good money gone west you huffed when you cleaned the Lady Chapel at church, got down on your knees...

Ayisha They can't believe their eyes. Strolling through their dappled afternoon: their stone bridges and rose cottages; their brook,...

A Bright Jewel in an Aethiope's Ear for John McAuliffe That was Stockport. No one got off at Stockport. It's after midnight. Very nearly...

Photograph by John Cairns Perfectly Good Legs for Kristin Headlam God didn't like his skinny legs and made better ones for mankind from...

Fishing with Ted Hughes That process of raid, or persuasion, or ambush, or dogged hunting, or surrender, is the kind of thinking we have...

/Str/anger The root of the word “anger” is “tight, painfully constricted”. The root of the word “guest” houses the root of the word...

Islands These islands would float off were they not locked to the mainland by bridges; if small boats did not occasionally go out and...

Everything Has Its Music Everything has its music. Everything is singing. Francophone pop from a passing car; shrill tyres at a stop...

Suddenly, a frog Not a leaf, nor a lighter piece of bark from the tight-packed, plastic-wrapped bundle I'd wrestled from the car into the...

The Carcass Pit It was my turn to climb down. We'd been biting the air; it wasn't enough. I stepped on fever flies, barefoot. (No cash...

Darjeeling Summer Flush Returning the leaves to the pot he'd drained, he contemplated the second steeping. This he'd enjoy at a different...

A Slight Misunderstanding Certainly, we can clear it up: who was tupped in the cloakroom, if directions to the hospital were clear, if...

Blitz My mother heard the siren scream, ran for the shelter, felt the ground shudder and the houses tremble. Later she found clothes and...

"There is no still moment" Heart here is not a metaphor my fist heart atria ventricles it moves pause it moves pause slightly...