I don't make a habitof tellingmy love what to dowith his body but his bonesare made of teacups & I keep picturingelbows at collarbone level, cocked& loaded like rubber bullets& rubber bullets& steel toed riot shields& shins in iron-creased bluepressi

Sometimes after I drop my kids off at preschool, I’ll take the longer route home, through downtown, over the potholes and tent-lined streets. When the faded pastel sign of the Spaghetti Shack comes into view just before the freeway on-ramp, I smell t

I’m gradually stealingall the pens from Rupert’s desk.It’s my largely unacknowledgedform of silent protest. So as my cheeks reddento loud jokes at my expense,my mind can drift awayto this quiet recompense. The giggles of our colleaguescost him books

The moment you see white as a colouryou see that everything is about race. Movies full of white peopleare about race.Social media pagesads search results and magazinesclassrooms governments neighbourhoodsoffices and leadership teamstourist attraction

On a sunny day in the city of Bristol, Esme stumbled in the street. The tip of her boot caught against a raised paving stone and she clattered to her knees. There was a small golden square of metal on the floor: Fugra from Freetown. Enslaved 15 years

I do the same thing every night. I climb the groaning stairs and head straight for the nursery. I change my little one and sing her the sweetest songs I can think of. When I rock her, my lullabies punctuated by the squeaks of my old wooden chair, I f

We know we are no differentfrom the honey bees.We too are creatures with wings of hope.In fact, every living thingis said to be in a state of worship. The miracle of it allbrings you to your knees.Does it not?Together a synchronised falling.We place

The queue pares down to a fat guy, a junkie and an old man. Then me. The fat guy is up now. He hopes he weighs enough to pop him over the benefits line. He tells the advisor he got sacked from his previous for health reasons and has a doctor’s note a

Ashif was shuttling books between the library and his dorm when Tahir stopped him and asked him if he had heard about Shakarullah. He had not heard about Shakarullah since the three of them had been at school together. Had he heard about yesterday's

To say I felt out of place at the protest would be an understatement. I’m very white. I work in transport policy and have been known to spend over thirty pounds on a fleece. Luckily, social distancing meant I could ignore the people trying to dance w

The fox. Chased. Ripped apart. Killed. Unrecognisable to the living animal it so recently was. Disgusting! I rip open the plastic packaging and remove the raw steak. Those poshos, doing something so ridiculous and barbaric just because it was what th

All summer longlittle ones write messages of optimismin chalk, to decoratethe sidewalks But, no one in Jingletownwrites aboutblack bodies and the concrete is so very silentfor black lives unless our silhouettes paintthe pavement withwhite outlines ■

From across the courtyard, Nelson saw the scatter of debris Hannah had tossed from their apartment. Socks and boxers, one Nike, one Puma, his poo emoji pillow, blue milk crates of nested speaker cables, their artificial Christmas tree. All of it look

You break the silence with your chainsawsthen call us an outbreak.You fell a forest with monstrous easethen call us a disease.You make our bodies acheand chirp, yet all you hear is applause. Yes, we burrow through barkand build our galleries in the w

If she picked up that packet of onions, it would all be her fault—wouldn’t it? Double the price for half the amount, a plastic tub brimming with pre-chopped convenience. That’ll be nice, less prepping so the twins can get fed quick– But what’s the pr

To eat your own children is a barbarian act. The Soviet regime printed this on posters during the Great Famine. Ildiko learned this while studying wartime Europe in the sixth grade. To her, Europe was a faraway land where either beautiful or horrible

The first few hours are the hardest. The urge to turn on the TV or your phone is strong, powerful even. It's like a drug, that pull, that need, to go online, to watch something, to buy stuff, but it never lasts long. Within a matter of hours, you beg

That June night in 1969 when the border closed between Spain and Gibraltar, my mother cooked rosto. She stood by the beige electric oven and tended to the pork cheeks sizzling in the pan, turning them over with a metal spatula. With her other hand, s

to get rid of decomposing fruitssearch for the death-fruitit is the fruit with the least remorseleave out the sour remainslick the blood from the spoongo after the fruitsbare-hand the fruits openso you can close after the fruitsquickly so they cannot

an idea arriveson a low-loader |the humourless driver slides down from the cabin a yellow puffaand hard hat, works the leverstill the four hydraulic feetstand planted, crabbed | I haven’t prepared a suitable base;he’ll set it downin the yard for now

It was Friday night. Another few stripes of the mower and she would finish the manor lawn. Sue planned on retreating to her flat and savouring a couple of ice-cold beers. Tipping the grass cuttings into the compost, a faint breeze wafted tiny green s