She keeps her hands clasped together. She can see the chipped red nail varnish on her toenails. A strand of someone else’s hair disturbs the symmetry of the ceramic floor. Reflections from the water play on the wall. Coach watches her, not the other girls who are narrow shouldered and slim. He moves her elbows Read More
All I’ve ever really wanted to be is a writer. I want to be able to express myself through words, to write down my life, to tell stories about the lives of all the fictional people I have inside my head, to think myself worthy of poetry, to have nice stationary and a phenomenal desk. Read More
The light dies across the page of her book. She only likes to read in the daylight, the synthesized glow of her bedside lamp an intrusion on her imagination; the way it casts shadows from her fingers across her words a nuisance. It’s only four thirty, but already night is stealing in from wherever night Read More
The wide corridors seem all the more expansive, empty as they now are. I cannot fathom why they made them so wide and so long. I sit on a wooden bench and lean against the wall and stare off into the distance. My thoughts are blind, difficult and abstract but they seem to want to Read More
(For Jim, An excerpt) When teatime-hame folk thrang the street And head for pleasures, dark and sweet As learning days are wearing late And full-time students congregate While they sit boozing at the Union Downing wine like last-communion They think na of the puir wee sowels Wha nichtly haunt the Uni’s bowels Heading for their Read More
for Jim V-neck sweater, cord trousers and laced shoes is in Dalhousie, Tower, at a corner of DCA’s Jute Bar, behind that circular table covered by a floral cloth a fruit bowl in centre, in a felt coat and flat cap a rucksack on both shoulders, a maple wood handled umbrella above his head or Read More
for Jim They asked about the man in black; why does he wear the darkness so? I answered; Not the black of dull disguise but dapper coat drawn over clothes, clothes over flesh, flesh over soul. Not the black of a mourner’s hat but a flat cap that holds the lid upon a wise and Read More
For Jim Where the Tay flows wide To meet the tide Of the ocean’s spray That churned the way For many ships to wander free With Dundee’s yarns across the sea You returned To weave your yarns To spin swift tales In colourful bales That held the magic of your charm That kept your listeners Read More
for Jim On a cool, bright March morning, winded climbing Seabraes lane, I watched some blackbirds, hedgerow shy but full of song, digging and flicking, working soil. Upslope two gulls brawled noisily, heads bent low, necks extended, heaving choking calls over last night’s spoils: chips, cold and congealed. Just as quick, an easeful calm restored, two heads sideways turned – curious looks Read More
for Jim Call us common glow worms but we’re bioluminescent beetles. Newborn living lights, not like those old-as-dust stars. They will not return your gaze. They are looking down on Vikings. Step into your garden and watch our earthly constellations. Cradle us in your palm. Look us straight in the eye. © Jacqueline Thompson