Grandma, by Annelies Judson

by | May 17, 2024 | Issue 7 poems

When I ask where my grandma got her tattoos, she says, “It was when I was a pirate.” I tell her not to be so silly. “I’m not being silly,” she says, a glint in her eyes. She tells me about the frothy sea and the whipping wind, singing shanties as she scrubbed the...

Mrs Spencer, by Michael Shann

by | May 17, 2024 | Issue 7 poems

Of all the dinner ladies, Mrs Spencer was our favourite. She skipped round the playground trailing long lines of children off each hand. The big ship sails through the Alley Alley Oh She also made us footballs from her old tights, a small green cushion we hoofed and...

Daddy is a painter, by Luciana Francis

by | May 17, 2024 | Issue 7 poems

and he says things using colours instead of words. He creates collages with shapes – his canvases are portraits, landscapes of an abstract world. But daddy can also paint without holding a brush. He paints by sowing seeds, by trimming the dormant shrubs. He paints by...

Unsung, by Rebecca Loveday

by | May 17, 2024 | Issue 7 poems

Mary Anning, Mary, Mary, as the rhyme goes, quite contrary. Scoured the shore from break of dawn for Devil’s Fingers, Ammon’s Horn*, to sell within her shop in Lyme – strange treasure from an ancient time. Mary Anning, Mary, Mary, soon became extraordinary. From...