Published on: 1/3/2013
Love Letters to my Flatmate

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
We're all out of milk
and margarine too.

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
The chocolate ones are mine
but the gingernuts are for you.

Roses are red.
Violets are blue (not pink).
Please stop leaving clumps of hair
in the bathroom sink.

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Why the f*** would you leave your stupid homemade moisturiser in the fridge?
I thought it was salad cream!
I took a tuna and moisturiser sandwich to work!
You suck!

Published on: 1/2/2013
Menagerie

You brought home a three-legged dog
and a cat with half a face.
Doomed creatures of all stripes—
lab mice, snake-food rats,
the mortally wounded pigeon.

A menagerie greeted me
the day I pawed at your door, nothing more
than another unwanted animal.
The cat stared knowingly
from its one
stubbornly beautiful eye.

Published on: 12/31/2012
Lamb

I knew the signs.
I twitched, in my over-sized wellies, unsure
of whether to stay.
Things can't be unseen, Mum said.

I covered my eyes; watched the birth through a lattice of fingers.
It wasn't dramatic—
a quick, slick squelch
and one became two.
A second old, now three, now five—
it's hard to process something that new.
The lamb looked raw, and smelled of the sea,
and seemed surprised.