On looking at Studies of the foetus in the womb by Leonardo da Vinci leave me in this silken nest to dream in peace of nothingness why thrust me out so soon from the sanctuary of a mother’s womb the ash has not yet shed its leaves the last rose is not plucked unripe fruit […]

after The Anatomical Manuscript by Leonardo Da Vinci   He tells me I’m not clever enough for him. I bathe in tea to lend my perfect skin the gravitas of parchment.   He drafts his lines on me. I admire the unintelligible slant of his script; ripple at the scratch of his nib. I learn […]

A draught sends the candlelight down the galley of corpses where a man sits sketching, gagged against the stench. The room is still, the walls are silent, listening to the scratch of pen the rub of pencil shading the flesh. An army of microbes guts against the seams of the skull, the eye bone’s flotilla […]

You have no story. All you ever knew was warm contentment, amniotic bliss, the constant rhythm of a constant heart. But Leonardo shows us none of this.   Instead, cold flesh anatomised, a womb sliced open like some bulging sun-ripe fruit. Huddled, crouching, softly damp, curled in: its core is all that now remains of […]

Once we were like that.   Once we were folded in on ourselves thumb to eyelid, toes to thigh,   life humming to us through its soft powerful rope.   Later we straightened out, taught all our parts their places   only going back in grief or in dreams –   as my great-grandfather dies […]

chestnut, oyster, ministry, pod, bunker, shelter, kiosk, vault; ingot, conker, pearl, soldier, pea, secret, newspaper, passenger;   ship, palace, hothouse, shed, fridge, envelope, oven, lift; sailor, queen, cactus, spade, egg, confession, descendant, cake;   church, court, aquarium, clinic, dock, tank, theatre, pulpit; surgeon, vicar, judge, angler, accused, patient, fish, believer;   voting booth, waiting room, […]