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Showing posts from February, 2013

'Crayfish' by Fleur Adcock

Of course with all those legs they�re arthropods � crayfish, lobsters and their armoured ilk. At school one day a bunch of us nipped out in our lunch-break and bought a prickly hulk to have our way with, rip apart and crunch. It was like eating a pterodactyl � morally, I mean, in retrospect � but the sea-drenched jelly when I snapped a leg from the carapace, cracked it and sucked in ecstasy� no,

Fault by Joanna Preston

A mistake. An error of judgement. A penalty brought against a quiet city. Stroll through the park, lunchtime almost over. A defect, a small disappointment. A summer day laden with clouds, grey light that softens the walls, the stone and brick, the glass. Less than expected. Someone to blame. A sparrow rests lightly on the hand of a statue. A weakness in the system, communications break down

The Gift by C. K. Stead

Allen Curnow 1911 - 2001 Brasch in his velvet voice and signature purple tie complained to his journal that you had 'interrupted'. I wasn't sorry. That was Somervell's coffee shop nineteen fifty-three. Eighteen months later you and I were skidding on the tide-out inner- harbour shelvings below your house from whose 'small room with large windows' you saw that geranium 'wild on a wet bank'

They Could Have Stayed Forever by Joan Fleming

There�s a free beach somewhere close to here, where everyone�s covered in sand. And everyone knows that sand is time, or time is sandy, and all the barriers are striped, red and white, like Christmas candy. But no-one�s there. They couldn�t find the rhyme for fun hiding in their pocket money. There�s only the space where they ate spun sugar, then floated off the boardwalk after their snack. Now