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Before I forget again

Poetry I am a ceramic horse in kintsugi fields. Shards shred my tongue to gold rivers. Cracked and crazed – from fire gallops beast. Memory slips lapis lazuli. I break curses, gather spells. Nudge fresh letters in water troughs – watch words bob – shiny new apples to crunch.

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Meteorology

PoetryI can predict the future. A little. And everyone loves to talk about the weather. I find what patterns I can, stay a day or two...

The market seller

FictionFor as long as she could, Emily hung back among the shelves of her shop. Being near books was one of the few things that truly comforted her. Her love of fairytales in particular, for the hope in darkness within them, had been the reason she’d started her market bookshop after Robert left her with barely anything following their divorce. Emily picked up a Victorian anthology of fairytales and poems, ran her fingertips along its edges, thinking of all the ways second chances might arrive in a life. Of how much she had to offer someone, how much love she had to give, if only she could find the courage.

Annah the Javanese

FictionPol drags the chair near, steps up onto it to hammer a nail into the wall above the mantelpiece. He squats to lift a painting of a woman seated in a rocking chair. As he attaches it to the wall, Annah steps back, enraptured by the languid lines of the woman, her black hair, her cinnamon skin, which is the same shade as Annah’s own. The woman’s dress is as red as a nutmeg’s lacy mace. Her bare foot reaches from beneath its folds.