Where or When

Things past and presentare linked by a thread and Iam in the middle holding it all together: my little cat and my witch’s hat,all muted colours, greys and browns. The doors are locked,the table is bare,and I can’t let goto read the notepinned to the wall. I would love to ridea little white horsepast a […]

Today’s Sermon

is marsh birdspouring over reeds and a golden plover’srapid wing beats, and the brief shadowsof small wavelets. Today’s sermon isa soft cacophony drifting from trees,cool air and moss. Today’s sermon ismy willpower disintegratinginto iced creaminess, a swirl of sweetness,a little thrill of pistachio. Today’s sermon isknitting a present for my sister in a rich redthe […]

Us

It was the beginning of us,that weather-buffeted cottageby the North Sea, haunted bysaline spectres and seabirds. Out-of-season virgin beaches wereravaged by wind, foot and paw prints.Seal-stalkers button-eyed us wearilyfrom the waves; they seemed to know about teeth-chattering winters spentwatching the carpet rise and watertrickle down rain-blasted walls. Yetit was cockle-warming:   the damp, smoky crackles […]

A Magical Paradelle

I have captured the magical glow of rowan berries.I have captured the magical glow of rowan berries.Their crimson-orange is the colour of a robin’s breast.Their crimson-orange is the colour of a robin’s breast.Crimson-orange magical glow is the colour I have.A captured robin’s breast the berries of a rowan. The barrier to enchantment is thus removed.The […]

In a Hotel Lobby

She waits, her legs tucked in demurely,an open book in her hands,but she doesn’t see the words; one eyeis on reception, its counterpolished and bee-wax-scented. Surelyhe isn’t late? The couple on the otherside of the late-night hotel lobbylook married; he stands,coat draped over arm while his seated wifetries to catch his eye. And then the […]

Aqua Aerobics

The calm surface of the pool,disturbed only by sparkles of lightlike fish weaving through ripples,is broken by a flattering of females,women of a certain age wading in,swimsuit clad, smiling and nattering,happy in the wrinkled map of theirbare skin. The music starts, limbs flailand water churns in an endeavourof exercises. Heads bob like sealsamong a symphony […]

Suffolk Scallop

‘I hear those voices that will not be drowned’, from Benjamin Britten’s opera, Peter Grimes. Pebbles slip and roll beneath our soleson the slope down to the ebb and swell. Suddenly it erupts from the shingle beach,a sculpture, two halves of a broken shell like hands extended to a passing gullor a cloud, one half upright, the […]

My Precious

High in the dark dome, you,my late-flowering moon, becomea fully bloomed pearl, tattooedwith gossamer veins. Below,grey and white houses tumbledown the valley, spangledfor a moment by the light, untilyou are hidden by cloud,wrapped in crushed velvet.Our monthly tryst is over now;I watch you sink, heavy and slowoutside my lonely window.Come back soon,my precious moon. Kim […]

The Perfume of Peonies

She raises the pink peonies, cool,damp leaves and petals a balmto her industrious fingers. Those dual-headed, blowsy globes grasped in her palmexude a fruity wisp of sweetnessthat makes her life much easier to bear.No customers notice the neatnessof her blouse, the pretty headscarf that she wearsto cover the cuts and bruises of her husband’s violence.She […]