Claudia Macey-Dare
The Northern line at 9:52
I wanted you to write to me, while I waited for the 9:30 train. No 9:44, not Euston, but Cambridge, came back, Euston Square in March, now a daily affair. Lying there in Archway, Archway, lying there. Heard a man with his beat up guitar, which he strummed and sung so softly; half the world away, you’re half the world away. What can I hurl, but scream and cry out; London is immortal, electric, beautiful. Be beautiful, be beautiful for me. But London, be beautiful in books on the tube, not in those tourist crowds at the Globe – though you will find it written on Medea’s lips, Almeida’s Greek season, running only ever solves half the problem. And the other half is you, on the Northern line, at 9:52.
Lilly Zhuang
甜 or her name in any other colour
2013, urn with powdered sugar that makes the mouth run dry – the better end of dopamine spread out across our pavement that hardly meets the sea
I promised you the beach by the end of 2013
Buying time with red packets I collect coins for moments gilded with an insomniac’s mind picturing celluloid scratches on the inside of my hand turned over, I meet you where the clocks don’t strike
a place that is not a place is a place because and despite
Our conversation forced to linger on untouched embankments, scattered erosion of unmet confection materialised and misplaced
I’m sorry I don’t recognise the edges of your face
A mother’s jade with bitter nectar laced braided around my neck shaped by a sibling’s traces reverberated
a sister that is not a sister is a sister because and despite
You, an image captured by a kid with shaking hands colourblind as the eyelids shutter – in the fabric of an empty space scented by the sugar that tears the page I lose my way following trails of candy wrappers With eyes closed to savour Every bit of foetal taste
Your name makes my tooth ache
Megan Williams
Poem 2
I believe she is happier since we moved. I often find her sitting on the windowsill, Humming about her food. Her eyes are focused on the tree outside: I think she can see the birds. Blue tit, robin, green tit, sparrow. Blue tit, robin, green tit, sparrow. Although, I believe she does not know their names. That tree is a dull shade of blue; Even at night she will not see it as I do. She reclines with her ears in the shade, And her body below a ray of sun, Not so nimble, this one. She has not moved. I believe she is happy, though.