I didn’t realise the walk was by the abattoirwhen I drove us out in Marchthe last chills of Winter spreading outlike paper ready for colour –my eldest pointed at itasking Dad what is that what is thatat the distant corrugated domeI told them This is where they take the cowsto make them into foodmy eldest laughed at meand my youngest

Due to limited control of our formatting on posts, the formatting of the following poem is incorrect. GapsBlanks SpacesAbsences perfectThe arrhythmic pulse of adamaged heartThe unreadable signs on her palms Scattered daisies the psalm of springbent on a frost soilrecoilingwaiting for the lightin no straight linemissing a few petalshissed away by the windBye. Buy issue 10 today. Lucent Dreaming is

Is this a bird I hear? This voice so sweet?I greet the dawn and hear you gently sing:your honeyed hums, melodious (tweet-tweet!)croons (grrroo), your inhalations softly wing,rise up and (grrroo) up till – CRESCENDO-oh!You’re a soprano! God, my heart’s run through:your song’s tuned sharper than Cupid’s arrow‘Tis not a bird I hear, but you (who? whoooo?)Though your (bok) song’s like

summer meant skipping the days away on the flat side of the ocean. meant the sky opened up in an arc of light as the moon pulled the tidelike a pearl on a string. we’d burn real easy, you and me — caught out under that heat likeflayed fish down at the mongers, all glassy-eyed and slippery smooth, bodies not

When I was small, I would crawl under tables.Hidden in a utopia of polished MDF untilsomeone managed to coax me out again.Hands over my ears, eyes closed, trying desperately toblock everything out. There is something peaceful in places where sound is muffled.Dampened, yet still present.Standing in the toilet block in the village hall,mirroring the dancing steps of my peers incomplete

I keep the tax returns under the paperweight,the one with the feathers trappeddrifting through glass.My degree certificates in the cupboard under the stairsin a box labelled Cat Pictures.My passport, in the flippy part of that old guitar caselined with a velvety coffee-beige fluff.Driving license behind the teapotthat I keep stuffed with dry teabags.Birth certificate between the pages of Bleak House.Ideas

Separate the infantmonkeys from their mothers. Provide themwith a surrogate. One made of wire,one wrapped in cloth,and both should carry milk. Cling to the cloth mother.Milk or not.Watch her dart to the wire to sucklebefore she races back. Secure and insecure?(Ambivalent and avoidant.)Distressed or withheld at the absence? Bring out the monster-mothersdressed in a cloth body —armed with brass spikes.