ONE POEM – Teodora Lalova

I often think of telling you
There is something wrong with time here.
I’m not sure whether I age faster or, quite the contrary –
Once we’re introduced again, I’ll be annoying in my youth.

ONE POEM – James Carroll

She’s pulling up weeds from the flowerbed
And then starts feeling one tug back,
Wrapping her water grip and dragging her
Through the claggy earth.

ONE POEM – Niamh Gallagher

This rockmelon is bloated with guilt
Sweet, near-rancid, on the knife’s edge of festering
Press down and it will oblige

ONE POEM – Lauren Bender

points for you if you are boss of the building, every lock
warm at your fingertips, every door’s soft click
yours as it shuts, every window with your face
reflected in it.

ONE POEM – A. Martine

Brown girl: you don’t get a plot twist. Your story’s been penned
with strokes as hollow as they are spiteful

ONE POEM – Emily Barker

A drunk girl came up to me in a club last week and told me, yet again, that I look exactly, no, exACtly–Sarah! Come over here! Doesn’t she look exACtly like our Hannah?