Jackson

As you stroke me carefully opening your hand flat I realise that the annoying jerky movements your fist made a month ago were your very best caresses. Read more

fuzzy honeyblonde hair, blonde eyebrows, faint nipples, neat navel, fat bare labia chubby bent legs tiny toenails, unused knees, soft buttocks, downy hair in the small of the back wriggling arms, waving fists, double chin, round pink cheeks and eyes … sometimes wild with pain or glazed with hunger, animal eyes sometimes soft with satisfaction Read more

Suck, baby. Undulate your tongue along my flesh and chomp me with your gums. Stare at my armpit, and flick your black-pool eyes about. Drain me until you doze. Consume me until you sleep. Just leave me one hand free. First published in An Endless Afternoon Read more

Kitzinger* says when I feel it move it will be like a little fish zigzagging inside. Kitzinger says it’s about as long as my index finger— like the pearlescent gourami in its father’s aquarium. A little fish or a mouse inside fully formed, with little toes a beating heart and rice-paper skin If a boy, Read more

“Standing with Light” by Michael Iwanoff. 1987, oil on canvas. New Norcia Art Gallery, Western Australia. Bent black trees. A huddled settlement: herd and children. Black birth houses, blood bridges, death-blue water, drips of ancient snow. Sheer cliffs—hundreds of feet. Then light, dusting, manna-ing down offering fake salvation McDonald’s redemption— and the shivering villagers, unguided, Read more

My little brother lies dead in a box. He no longer exists. I believe in no soul. His tall thin body will rest with the rocks. I watch them lower it down the hole— I, our parents, and a hundred friends. The flowers are beautiful but they won’t last. Among the trees and the community’s Read more