Sharon Olds

‘When I build a fire, I feel purposeful.’

Issue 2

David Katz

‘Ever notice the change that comes over / your gentle wife the minute she sets / foot in a grocery store?’

Issue 119

Jamie McKendrick

Issue 131

Kathryn Maris

‘this dream that might have been pleasant for an / 8-year-old could instead emerge as a nightmare for a woman / on the brink of menopause’

Issue 100

Jamie McKendrick

‘greener / for an alien crop of hogweed higher / than us’

Les Murray

‘Rice in bowl with chopsticks / denotes food. Figure 1 lying prone equals other.’

Hoa Nguyen

‘I wrote ‘valley’ when I meant ‘longing’ / Your laugh a river A trout kind of green.’

Wayne Miller

‘After the plane went down, / the cars sat for weeks in long-term parking. / Then, one by one, they began to disappear / from among the cars of the living.’

Issue 120

James Lasdun

‘I thought I’d do it while I still could.’

Lorraine Mariner

‘On one of those mornings / when I felt like resigning / from my life.’

Michael Ondaatje

‘The pattern of teeth marks on skin’

Issue 128

Andrew Motion

‘What am I doing here more than looking – / which I would stop / only to help things through their vanishing’

Jynne Martin

‘The hunter pushes a bullet beneath his tongue to fix his aim, / or is it to stave off his thirst?

Jynne Martin

‘It is the hour for farewells. It is the hour.’