At 4am

by Danielle Salvadori dark deep wakingdread and dream entwinetrap me fracture menumb me surface to your breaththe pump of lungsyour slow breathslow rasp tree magpierattles gratesmarksnight’s end you hard breatheand turnthe firstgrey of day pull me nearskin heartvelour wrappeddespair dimmed exhaletogetherslideinto sleep Danielle Salvadori is a poet, photographer and video maker living in London. Her poetry has been published, or Read More

Goodbye to This and That

by Constance Woodring I am old. Thank God. I will be dying soon. Thank God.I made shrimp cocktail this evening. The shrimp were frozen, cooked and in a bag marked:“no chemicals added.”As I write this poem, I still have a taste in my mouth. As if I made swimming pool water shrimp dip.I do not have children. I do not Read More

An Old Superstition

by Lannie Stabile When I cross a cemetery, I grip my breath like a rosary. I watch the tombstones blur,the iron fence galloping along. I finger the beads of my lungs until my chest pops. I try desperately to exorcise you. But the heart is weak and wispy. I release the imprisoned mistand breathe your ghost in again, as I Read More

Anxiety

by David Hanlon What is there to say about rickety bones that isn’t rickety? Not much when my nervous system is shot and my tongue is muted by panic so thunderous I fight against the gulping of half-formed vowels, I breathe in five times faster, and if each breath taken in is a new intake of life, I’m clamouring to Read More