Piishii-isdzan

They were shaped like humans, humans with rat-tail hair or weeping willow spines or long hungry feet, and they danced around her, carried on her fearful imagination. She could taste their wicked delight and she cried, paralysed as they fed upon the chilled currents of winter walks. The little wolves spun up her ankles and took on her thighs; nothing left unexplored for them or her, a vicious loving in the trees. She met the thick loam with her knees and stayed upright, her hollowed body becoming the only memory anyone might ever have of her. These are the woods where the children come to die. These are the shadows where grey-faced sleep wait

The curtains are never drawn in the spare room. Why aren't you coming, why aren't you sitting on the edge of the bath keeping watch right through me? I feel the carpet and soak up every silent look, store them under my toenails, and I miss you. You exploded, the bees in the lavender bush are all that's left of you.

One year after I met you - Ill, stricken, your chocolate orange lies castling across my joints, I break – concave dandelion, seeds splashing under my gambling shoes. One year, one month - They may lay their hides over your favourite city garden walks, might leave hopeful lip prints on the glass in your sturdy museum holidays, spit love-letter typefaces down their ankles or hum in the grey cold to stay awake for surgery, and I will coagulate with my dresses, not collectible.

We waltz through the happy grass, whittling kisses, lips berry-bright, and safe in one another; our song of breath and loose hair, of cheesecloth, cardboard boxes, earthworms, quiet as our eyes.

Sirs, you are the only ones who think you have the right to crouch amongst chalk and broken stems, and recite seven heavy syllables to the swell of the iron sea. You alone possess the arrogance with which to bruise the grass that frosts the brows of hills, so that you might stand and talk to stone walls, coaxing well-combed, honey-tongued men from within with warnings not to become like you. You do not swallow clouds of lime-scent coiling from the peel of fruits, close your eyes against the perfume, connect. You resent and fester. You organise your wars, requesting only that we give you soldiers, and you paint flowers several shades too br

I love you damp formal greetings sickened our work, an idiot-grin turnstile - your dyslexic clothes smile awkwardly when drinking – red wine, as though you aren't sure of yourself, and every spelling mistake, crows' laughs, exploded and drunk, your silent pleas plea please don't drag them out for prizes for, what? Not tapping a code on your flesh or ringing the Notre Dame in your smooth bones? Happy first birthday, right angle girl.

They were gone. He was alone. He had loved her obsessively since she first began to talk to him, using strange, soft sounds that he could not comprehend. With her help, he learned her language in painfully slow, short bursts; the first lessons were light, uncomplicated, filled with rewards of hard sweet biscuit each time he managed to copy vowel sounds. They were easy for him. All he had to do was to watch the a, the e and the i o u tumble from her mouth and catch them with his own. Gradually his imitations became less hesitant. Soon he could say her name. It became his greatest happiness. Whenever he watched her during their lessons, he wo

My hotel kitchen, where the personal rejections have hidden  - I tile the floor with caring forks, greasy with sleep, and never forget to wipe my feet.