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by Roy Duffield

there's no-one around
for hundreds of miles
but a spine and its ribs
hang
the wire that cuts divisive
the land--the next half-
swaddled in its former skin stiffened,
ripped away at
the edges--
the tattered albiceleste waving to no-one
never left
to rest in peace
by the Patagonia winds--the next
still has its eyes big beautiful
and dead--the next--
the next--every few yards
the next--until the one that still struggles
the one that could still be saved. But living
is the only state
never hang-
ing here on display (and besides
there's no-one around
for hundreds of miles). What
were they thinking
as they lost their last blood
to the desert shrubs
to the barbs
that protect
the absent owners'

land? There's no-one around
for hundreds of miles

by Cath Nichols


Sometimes, at night, my palms light up
as if I were a kid falling from my bike
and skidding on loose gravel.
Granular pain, each grain a song.
They semaphore a memory of climbing…
plum trees, yes!
If I could pick out the grit, I would.