i. swimming, eyes closed. i want to see how far i’ll get before my breath runs out and all i am is ripples. the sea feels impossibly shoreless, here in the middle where the waves twist my body into a question mark: can the ocean exist without us trying to cross it? ii. if water […]

Listen. Put on lightbreak             like the loafers that don’t quite fit                         but will in time. Wipe the sands of shame                                     and other people’s expectations from your eyes and waken into miracle. The audience             has faded with the stars. Walk soundlessly                         through the forest that breathes and dreams                                      with you. […]

i will take you now,          let me have your hand (i heard there’s an artery straight to the heart from your wrist), let me hold it,     and i will                take you now. listen.                shut your eyes, […]

(After ‘The Beast in the Space’ by W.S. Graham.) Keep to the edge! To be sure, the shore is your friend. Look at how she wends, sharp black forked tongue, up and over the horizon lines, lashing, thrashing, serpent, siren, tale as old as ink. Don’t turn the page! Her fossils are here, but overleaf […]

I shall have the last word, snatch it as it loops to its full self, newt-like, belly oiled with vowels, only to flip it back; a thin ghost of itself, now tadpole, pond skater, to flit from lobe to drum, drown, as new sounds bubble from your lips. If I’m quick, I’ll catch a full […]

tur·quoise noun 1. pale wooden beads in your mouth. 2. tangling bracelet string around your tongue. french adjective eggy bread with raspberry jam. cap·tain noun 1. paper dissolving in your mouth – 2. fibres clamping your taste buds as though you spit ink. i·rrit·ate verb a mosquito laps orange juice from the crook of your […]

I’m sorry. Romeo isn’t cooperating today. She’s sleeping. Listen to her drumming heart sighing up and down my sticky couch. Watch her twitching paws flying in the jalousie-filtered sun-lagoon of my living room. Here, tuna-shaped mice hide in wispy coral yarn. But alas, her dreams do nothing to close the Silence between us. Yes, I’ve […]

In  between the sprinklings of a summer sun let off for a new kind of yellow,   an ocean of open vibrates within faces, closes and     widens          in tidal conversation, remembering                                 and what are we? […]