“That is the trouble: we are in two worlds, and it is probably hardly possible for you in yours to picture mine.” – John Jarmain. You arrived this morning, packed into a bent envelope, once folded to          attention. The blue lines crawl about the margins, looking for ways out and today […]

Leningrad, mother-city, I return to you in the dark with lungs swollen, breaths incapable, your streets no longer skin immaculate as ice. I remember your cold northern nights like the back of my left hand, how I chronicled your alleyways in days I spent waiting for my son in snow that wanted to smother me. […]

In the market, fire-flowers bloomed from gun-metal seeds and dazzled the streets into submission as Papa called us back into the house. I remember catching his brittle smile while he wrapped us in his hands and told us everything would stay the same. When the red-arm-bands swept past along the roads, you said that they […]

None of us had left our home country before None of us knew we were going to war (The boat, the boat I’m going to be sick) A country called France full of curious stares Not used to brown skin and turbaned black hair (Eyes forward, eyes forward Don’t look) We left towns behind for […]

I do swear that I will be faithful She holds my shoulders at arm’s length: Polished boots, hot khaki and She pins on a flower and tells me not To forget. A flame red against my chest. and bear true allegiance I can’t seem to get warm. Cold metal In my arms and ice in […]

somewhere a son, a lover, a gun (all these three combined in one an unholy trinity) falls beneath the sun. all the world stops. the soldiers still. a final breath and then a chill: how terribly simple it is to kill. embraced by silence, taken to the shade. a man undone, a man unmade coins […]

                              to have and to hold from this day forward dawn breaks and somewhere a radio goes static                  as wedding bells ring. the white noise of our cathedral           […]