Porridge

ONE POEM – Ottavia Silvestri

bathroom bucolic a pupil, dollop of toothpaste pink blue yellow cotton balls in the static light a gracious not swarming not fermenting pale May Ottavia Silvestri is a political science student that lives in Milan, Italy. In her free time she studies Mandarin and volunteers in a tiny cat shelter (hi Melinda, you’re my favourite…

Walking, Encumbered: Dispatches – Nicola Sayers

For the longest time, I walked alone. I walked to think. I walked to see. I walked to be seen. I see them, now. They wear pretty summer dresses, or jeans. In winter, brightly coloured scarves. Their light backpacks sit squarely on both shoulders; inside each, I imagine, is a book, a notepad and a…

ONE POEM – Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana

Hamamatsu: home of unagi pie –– a biscuit made of eel.

Iwakuni: bridge of Samurai –– beer with strangers under blossom.

COMFORT FOODS // Courgette — Yas Necati

In the Turkish supermarket, you search through baby peaches and it makes me feel closer to you.

Diamonds or Snow – T.S.J. Harling

Image by Alex Avalos, via Unsplash This is the place you go to bury or burn the person you love. – You are in a cinema with friends, or a boyfriend, or your family. No-one is ill, no-one is cross, and you have enough money to waste on a cinema ticket and popcorn and fizzy…

ONE POEM – Lorraine Carey

Slathered in a vernix coat,
you slithered out to my relief
with ten toes and two perfect hands
bunched into tiny fists.

An Ode to Cross-Dressing – Clara Schwarz

I tightly pull back my hair into a slick, low bun, parted far on the right side of my skull. With a several pumps of hairspray, I even out the edges and create a stiff look. I squeeze the top button through its hole and stand up straight as I clip the bow into its…

ONE POEM – Sarah Degner Riveros

Mama hugs
her son. Can we get
horchata? No. Not today.
It’s Tuesday. Treinta tacos?
De asada? Para llevar.
The wait’s worth it.

COMFORT FOODS // Cutlets – V.M. Braganza

Cutlets (also called potato chops), much like my family and their language, resist any attempt at tidy or singular classification.

You die if you worry – Robert Scott

You die if you worry, die if you don’t. I laughed the first time he said it. I hadn’t heard it before.

Pero’s Promise – Tamara Lazaroff

At the village bus stand, with my packed bags, I’m crying my eyes out as I kiss the faces of the row of relatives—Uncle Mitko, Beti, Verka, Tanja, Mirka, even Baba Slobodanka who Branko has carried on his back. Others, too. They’ve all come to say goodbye before I go back home to Australia. And…

ONE POEM – Hideko Sueoka

Carnivorous Butterwort A pale-purple tint – a sort of violet of little petals attracting flies, ants in fresh beeches shading the zigzag trail with glossy moss. The floral colour implies saintly piety to God or deities at which an insect could quail in the East. Ecru moths cruise and scurry. Near Acheron just a halt….