I Am Coin by Rosaleen Lynch
My spirit rests in one of the thirty pieces of your soul’s silver, tendered, a test of my undaunted mettle, I am coin, a victim of the currency that barters…
My spirit rests in one of the thirty pieces of your soul’s silver, tendered, a test of my undaunted mettle, I am coin, a victim of the currency that barters…
In the school cafeteria at lunchtime, hungry mouths of lickspittle children lick salty chip-fingers and belch like milk-drunk babies in each other’s faces. Douglas’s table is empty, his belly too.…
1 sip Hot blend of black and a spot of white. A stroke to the tongue, a hump to the throat, a pause to time. Perfect. A crack zigzags ceiling-to-floor.…
These moments are everything. Right now with Azalea is when I’m truly home, even if it’s virtual. She’s wearing the cream chiffon scarf I bought for her thirtieth. She always…
Remember the night he turned up at the roadhouse? We were on the graveyard shift. I was mopping the floor, you were counting the till, looking busy for the CCTV.…
Paint the nursery walls mint, maybe with white trim, the color of the butter mints the church served after your wedding. Get a quilt with circus animals marching around the…
It’s her voice you hear first. A high-pitched shriek that brings up your skin in pimples. You’ve been sitting at your wobbly-legged desk, mindlessly nibbling a cinnamon swirl that bloats…
Prelude He watches as she discreetly tips whiskey from her flask into a pint glass full of Coke. She sees him looking and blushes. Raises a violent red fingernail, nibbled…
The flesh on his arms, like an overripe banana, peels as I drag my nails upward. Ribbons of crimson appear – thin, jagged trails on his skin. He doesn’t just…
She knew by the look on his face that he had returned from wherever he’d travelled to this time. Finally found his way home. He pulled the saline drip from…
She’s building a baby. Scooping the beach with busy hands. Limpet shell eyes, driftwood splinter buzzcut. Seaweed nappy wrapped tight. You stare anywhere but down. Watch a sandpiper in the…
Staring from the photograph, he almost winked: Skinny Joe, cross-legged in the front row, squinting up at the flash – Joe of the razor-sharp one-liners and the dirty jokes; Joe…