I was not the first. I knew that when it happened. But you feel like the only one it’s happening to. Because it’s happening to you, and there’s only one you. My father died when I was 23. He was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in July and died in February the next year. For the…
Tag: family
Fiachaire — Shannen Malone
“We can’t take it all,” her brother had said, tossing memories in a bin bag like kittens for drowning.
Mick Jagger Used to Call Me Mum – Jacqueline Ellis
When I was little, the dark staircase between the front and back rooms of my grandparents’ two-up, two-down terrace house had been a mountain. Each step a jagged, granite foothold; the shadowed landing a dark cloud hiding a kingdom of giants, or a castle encased in twisted branches. Their bedroom glowed yellow; the edges of…
ART: Natalie Bradford
Through countless retrievals, our memories of precious moments lose their ‘truth.’
ONE POEM – Iona May
When did writing
become such a warm meeting place?
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.
ONE POEM – Elizabeth Wilson Davies
The unconsidered diaries of family life fall open at once favourite recipes,
bittersweet imprints on the page of stained, smeared, sticky memories.
COMFORT FOODS // While You’re Still Here – Yasmine Jessy Amr
You scribble on a piece of paper, pausing every two minutes to remember. Your memory isn’t what it used to be. But you try anyway.
TWO POEMS – Natalie Crick
I want to feel
the warm milk of your smile.
I want to see your reflection
in the moon’s mirror, polished like spring bones.
ONE POEM – Clifford Brooks
Vacant of leaves
and shell-wrapped gifts,
dad and I can see the sky.
TWO POEMS – Sara Nesbitt Gibbons
Their heads out, curved eyes on us,
reciprocating the salty, convex cabin.
Look, there, beautiful wooden bowling balls, said my mum.
Five Baked Beans – Katy Thornton
Image: Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash Katy Thornton has just graduated with a First Class Honours in her MA in Creative Writing in December, and is currently working on short fiction, as well as a longer piece of work about the Magdalene Laundries in the 1980s. Her hobbies include mostly reading and writing, as well…
Porridge 