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.