Unpacking
by Thea Smiley
Unzip the dark blue holdall.
Release the stink of that trip.
The detention in an airport
holding a hot sleeping child.
The final call for the flight,
names echoing through the building.
The long walk up the aisle
of a packed island hopper.
The air hostess, who retreats
behind a tatty yellow curtain.
The missing luggage and travel cot
glimpsed through a closing door.
The tarantula waiting
on the step every morning.
The doorknob rattled in the night
while the family sleeps.
The soupy swimming pool,
a child slowly sinking.
The room beside the bay
with an undertow, large waves.
The woman in a pale dress,
skin shining beneath streetlights,
face up, bare legs out straight,
her shoulder to the curb.
Lift her out now, gently.
Wreathe her in warm breath.
Empty the dark interior.
Lay her to rest.
Proof
by Liz Dean
Patrick’s on his feet, his big mouth mooning
Just a ha’penny, cold’s in my bones,
mimicking your reedy voice, jerking
his tankard the way you’d jab your palm
a right mummery if ever I saw it
we haul our chairs to Mother Piper’s yard
sipping pissy ale horseflies and shit and Mother whispers it’s curious how you sit at the back of the kirk. I saw you Marion, a burnt moth folded in on yourself then wanting alms at the lychgate or was it the market cross and muttering oaths when our heads turned the pedlar John Lemar looks dark scrapes his throat all important he’s seen a magpie the devil’s bird, yes cawing in the filth by the byre it must be you, shape-shifter that’s a sure sign, pointing his rough finger to the air, Hag
II
My head aches from the barley malt and through the glass I spy you taken wings flailing as the Baillie slides you over the cobbles the drizzle sour, your face hidden has Mother made a Mention to save her own skinny hide or did the pedlar name you for a bird? Grissell says, No one likes a beggar nor a magpie I pin my mouth shut
III
In the chill of the kirk, Elder McKinnon:
Patrick Skoon was took abed.
And our Elder stands witness
to the devilry that caused it, for only a man
such as he might make fair claim:
Mister Skoon, for he’s a Mister now
who cavorted in drink that night
who jibbed and screeched in a way so affected
was made a puppet for the devil.
Patrick here before us in his best boots
(and he’s holding aloft the Good Book)
by the grace of all that is holy swears
he was cursed by Marioun Rutherford
Swear it true. Stand witness in the last of the sun.
Pin your mouth open, swear it true as flies on––
She is seized on charges of witchcraft
by Rachel Curzon
i. Men with hard eyes slide her jars and bottles into plastic bags, and label them.
ii. Her cats are not in their usual places. When she chirps for them, a dozen biros click.
iii. The bathroom waste bin has been tipped and shaken. Out spins a balled nest
of the hair she raked from the brush. Mine, she whispers, watching all the Adam’s apples
jerk. It’s mine.
iv. Look outside, comes a voice emphatically. Animal tracks beneath the windows.
And, sure enough, there are.
v. Did she spew this lot? Somebody is holding up a marble, a daffodil, a small rubber dinosaur.
She feels her stomach pucker at the thought of it.
vi. But what am I meant to have done? she asks, her teeth chattering. No answer is forthcoming.
She is led to the ducking pond where her accuser, she notices, is already seated on a
shooting stick. He is eating fruit salad with a wooden fork and informing her loudly that she
must repent.
Thea Smiley’s poems have been shortlisted for The Frogmore Prize 2024, the Bridport Prize and the Live Canon Collection competition, longlisted in the Rialto Nature and Place competition, commended in Poets and Players, Sonnet or Not, and Ware competitions, and published in magazines including Finished Creatures and Butcher’s Dog, and anthologies from Renard Press, the Wee Sparrow Press and Arachne Press.
Liz Dean is a non-fiction author, tarot-reader and divination teacher living in Sunderland. In an earlier incarnation, she commissioned illustrated books and read tarot cards in Selfridges. Her poems have appeared in The Alchemy Spoon, Superpresent, South Bank Poetry and Magma.
Rachel Curzon was born in Leeds and now lives in North Yorkshire. She was the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award in 2007, and her debut pamphlet was published under the Faber New Poets scheme. More recently, work has been published, or is forthcoming, in 14 magazine, Magma, Propel Magazine, The Haibun Journal, Anthropocene and berlin lit, among others. Rachel is currently working on her first collection.