Sardines

Olga went into the kitchen to make herself some lunch. She cut a thick slice of sourdough bread and tried to squeeze it into the toaster, but it wouldn't fit so she smushed it with the heel of her palm and then it did fit, just about. Next she poured herself a glass of water but it was too warm when she first sipped it so she poured it out and ran the cold tap again until it wasn't warm any more.

Then she opened the cupboard, realised she'd opened the wrong cupboard, opened the right cupboard and took out a tin of sardines, in sunflower oil. Although she'd have preferred tomato sauce. And she opened them, over the sink so she wouldn't spill the oil on the counter.

But there wasn't any oil. Because the tin didn't have any sardines in.
It was full of  sand. White sand, with tiny shells and bleached pieces of coral and tide-smoothed glass. It poured out of the tin as though from an hourglass, or a shoe worn on a walk along the sea-shore. And the watery sunlight shining in through the window made it glow, and the sight was so strange, so unexpected, so beautiful, that she could do nothing but stare as the sand slid slowly down onto dirty dishes.

She stared for so long that she could smell the toast burning.

Haiku, Untitled

My bed is like a
kitchen drawer, empty but
for one little spoon.

The First Astronaut

Once upon a time in Ancient China there was a man named Wan Hu.
He wanted to go into outer space.

So, he attached forty-seven rockets to a chair, and, dressed in his finest attire, tied himself atop it.
Then forty-seven attendants lit the rockets with forty-seven torches, and fled for their lives.

There was an almighty explosion, louder than thunder, brighter than lightning.
When the smoke cleared, Wan Hu and the chair had disappeared.
He was nowhere to be seen, and never found.

Now, the legend goes that Wan Hu was killed in the explosion. His body disintegrated in a burst of blinding light.

But what if he didn't? What if, somewhere out there in the vast nothingness of space is a skeleton strapped to a charred wooden chair, dressed in Mandarin finery? Drifting past satellites and asteroid belts, jaw still open as though gasping for air. The first man in space, chalked down in history as a colossal, self-destructive failure.

When in reality, he was a secret pioneer.

Michaelmas, Night.

Back to creeping cobbled alleys on starless nights,
Past windows misted with drunken breath,
Crossing bridges whose bright lights make
ghosts of passers by, where far below the
black river rushes and, all the while, the
cathedral watches over it all.
Its faces glow like phantoms.
Its bells, silent.

Bath Time

She was taking a bath. Gazing at her feet and the body leading down to them. Breasts like small islands, pale against her tanned skin. Beyond her stomach, too, (bellybutton filled with water like a small pool), a triangle of white from her bikini bottoms. Hair dark against the porcelain white. She doubted the skin there had ever seen sunlight. Her legs looked strange, foreshortened by the viewpoint, magnified by the water. Her toes were wrinkled. She wriggled them.

Then suddenly small creatures began to pour out of the taps.

Not insects. Larger. Tiny animals she'd never seen before, some humanoid, some not. All different colours, all different shapes. A lurid assortment of fins and feathers, scales and skin. They trickled down and swam or floated or floundered around her feet. She froze. She tried to blink them away but they wouldn't go. She tried to wake up but she was already awake. She drew her feet back up towards her, and reached for the plug.

They all got sucked, spinning and screaming, down the drain, and she was left in the empty bath, sitting naked in a puddle of guilt with beads of confusion on her brow.

Fur and Bones

I have a fur hat. It's made of rabbit skin. I don't feel bad about that, though society might expect it of me. Guilt, I mean. For wearing fur. The blood of innocent rabbits is on my hands. Or rather, head. Well, on my head be it. I don't feel bad one bit.

 How cruel, you say. How inhumane. Well, my friend, I saw you eat a burger yesterday. I saw you suck the marrow from a chicken bone. It didn't take you long; in a matter of minutes you'd devoured it whole. And didn't that cow, that chicken have a life, too? Don't you believe it had a soul? And it was killed only for your gastronomic pleasure. Did it please you? A life ended in a series of bites and chews and swallows. Did you swallow your guilt down too? Does it sit there in the pit of your stomach, getting cold?

You put it on your plate and now it's gone.
Well, my hat will serve me all winter long.
And many winters to come. The rabbits' lives were fleeting, but their skin lives on.

And perhaps I don't deserve so kind a sacrifice.
Maybe I should pay some sort of penance, some sort of price?

So when I die, please be so kind as to take my bones,
and build a lovely little hutch for rabbits to call home.

New House

This new bed makes my skin crawl.

And I feel as though the duvet is a pall.

But I like to hear their voices in the hall.

And I like the way the morning sun draws straight, bright, lines

upon the wall.