Samantha Walton

‘though I’ve sat where torrents recall no slush / I’m drawn by your ceramic explosions’

Kate Duckney

‘At sunset the light is both nasty and nice / in my robe.’

Mary Ruefle

‘One of the loveliest possibilities / is that the truth is made of glass’

Diana Anphimiadi

‘Anyway, I did not die. / I lined the sky, inside-out.’ Translated from the Georgian by Jean Sprackland and Natalia Bukia-Peters.

Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

‘A life is an open thing / leaking out into / the air around it.’

Irene Solà

‘I wore off my tongue / like candy’ Translated from the Catalan by Oscar Holloway.

Momtaza Mehri

‘like pasolini’s dream of an african oresteia let us be ridiculous’

Fiona Benson

‘days I talked with Zeus / I ate only ice / felt the blood trouble and burn / under my skin’

Momtaza Mehri

‘salmaan the second son & his mama’s seventh seal by way of underwater & underemployment’

Eugene Ostashevsky

‘Making sense of a feeling is like building a boat from water.’

Chelsey Minnis

‘I’m going to smash the geraniums. / Do you mind, darling?’

Andrew McMillan

‘I hadn’t / realised it possible / that I might grow into kinder / ownership of my own looks’

Kristín Ómarsdóttir

‘cut a piece from a lip and put in a secret place’ – New poetry translated from the Icelandic by Vala Thorodds.

Issue 143

Nathaniel Mackey