Crows by Janet Butler

Silence swells the room with the pressure of quiet. My thoughts are black birds bright with night. They peck at my heart with sharp beaks, they gobble sweet chunks of me I would have preferred to offer you.   Janet Butler relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2005 after many years in central Italy. She teaches ESL in San Francisco, and some of her current or forthcoming publications are “Mason’s Road”, “Assisi”, “Caduceus”, and... Read More

Go on, get on with it: an interview with Maggie Gee

How and when did you get started as a published author? I was ten years old and sent a cowboy story to Mickey Mouse magazine. They did a little news story about it, headed ‘Budding Author of Bililngshurst’. Then I had poems in school magazines – if only all schools had them now! Come on, English teachers! It’s such an encouragement to see your work in print (or of course now they could be online). In terms of ‘real’ publication, I wrote my... Read More

I Got Granddad’s Old Razor by Gareth Spark

Short white stubble – snowflake wheat - dragged from the last days of your skin were clogged in the razor I was given - I couldn’t use it then - those sprinkles of year bleached bristles were all the flames had spared. It was a relic as much as saint’s bones and hilltop cells. Now my sideburns are white as well but, granddad, you never saw them pale - for you I was always young, and one day too my shaved remains will be all that remains of me, hugged by a razor’s... Read More

Trapezium by Shelley Day Sclater

They’d tried everything but nothing had worked. It’s no use, she said. She was inspecting the light in the centre of the ceiling. The fitting had somehow got twisted, making the lamp hang at a strange angle, causing it to cast too bright a light on one side of the empty room, leaving the other side in shadow. It’s a trapezium, he said. His voice was bright and echoey, there being nothing to absorb it. He was looking at her looking up at the lamp. What? she said. Trapezium,... Read More

Two Bodies’ Harmony by A.J. Huffman

Smile. In a jar. Then seal the lid. I will carry it. Copied. In my pocket. Through tomorrow. Where I can smash it. And stretch it. Over my own. And you won’t believe the fit. I might not either. That’s why I will leave you my eyes. To take its broken place.   A.J. Huffman is a poet and freelance writer in Daytona Beach, Florida. She has previously published three collections of poetry: “The Difference Between Shadows and Stars”, “Carrying Yesterday”, and “Cognitive... Read More

Subway to Brooklyn Bridge by Sandy Green

On the subway to the stop at Brooklyn Bridge, the car slips through perpetual night while a grinning man gawps at me, his tongue exploring the spaces between his teeth; How I wish for a crowded train so that I could hide, or that I had the courage to offer him my socks, a meal, a toothbrush; He heaves himself forward on the seat as if he’s about to make a speech or ask my name, My eyes disappear down his throat as we’re swallowed under Manhattan.   Sandy Green is a poet... Read More