by Cathy Bryant

Glen
(inspired by the novels of Susan Fletcher, as well as my own experiences)

You comb your hair with thistles and drink at the burn
while the snow-hare is running. The witch appears
as trees do from mist, offers you a warm egg and
a hearth. She is half-here as a damselfly, threadbare
as the skittering clouds. Take the moths from her hair,
and the spiders; lay them gently in alder, to winter.

by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight spills
down vacant sills,
illuminates an empty bed.

Dreams lie in crates.
One hand creates
wan silver circles, left unread

by its companion—unmoved now
by anything that lies ahead.

I watch the minutes
test the limits
of ornamental movement here,

where once another
hand would hover.
Each circuit—incomplete. So dear,

so precious, so precise, the touch
of hands that wait, yet ask so much.

by Fliss

He greets me with his usual half-salute
as I approach the summit of the hill.
It's winter, but he's in a linen suit,
the sort he wore before becoming ill

and less inclined to leave the bungalow
he used to share with Wynn until her death
one hazy day in June. He smiles. "Hello!"
I call, "Hi Grandad!", slightly out of breath

from climbing and from carrying the things
he asked for while in hospital: a bowl
of ice cream and his dressing gown, with strings
for decency. We sit and watch a foal

by JP Davies

by Sara Backer

Time travel injuries are hard to treat.
Recovery is rare. The mind unwinds
as arms and legs appear and disappear.

We house the patients by their years of birth.
A roommate from their future tends to scare
new ones who need some hope of being cured.

You see, Alexa’s tongue has healed today,
and she could eat her steak from yesterday—
but now her mangled hand can’t hold a knife.

by Michael R. Burch

by Priyanshi

The hair that was once an addition to her beauty
Is now held in chunks by a muscular hand
The legs that never stopped running
Now hurt so bad it's hard to stand

The head that was full of dreams and fantasies
Is now banged against the wall every second night
The cheeks that used to glow brighter than the stars
Are now drained of their colour at his sight.

by Ryan Stone

You will never fall in love with me.
Don’t try to convince me
That I will always wait for you.
If you really look, you’ll see
I’m not here for the long haul
Don’t imagine
You give me reason to stay.
When things get hard I’ll leave –
Don’t imagine
I’m not like the others,
Goodbye.
I’ll never say
I love you.

Now, for the truth - please read again from bottom to top.

354th Weekly Poetry Contest

by Alex Dobuzinskis

Rats eat the rind and leave the fruit

So kingly, like what I would want

Of course, eat the brightness

The skin that wants to spray and hold and bounce

Simultaneously

Not the dull, opaque flesh

Eating the rind, like skiing down a skyscraper

Louis XIV rotting his teeth on sherbet

Never rehearsing without an audience

Sleeping through the boring parts

Serving the tongue, confounding the gut

Skin deep, the whole way around

by JP Davies