By Martin Cromie

My father’s big hands raise me by the oxters

pitching me across the pad-locked gate

to where the rut-scarred lane is barely seen

between the unkempt walls of gorse and fern.

By Alistair Noon

There is an island where they’ll kill

the visitor who strides ashore.

It seems to be the people’s will.

It seems to be the natural law.

By Seán Carlson

Three pints in, pleasantries

spill an apology:

Sorry if I offend—

but still we think of boats,

as if hulls carved of tree

alone, adrift, at sea.

By Matt Bunk

And Idaho was a golden blaze where I held my grief

The flowers that could not be picked

Roots I could not pull

Text and images by David Rubenstein

She looked up from the turnip she was inspecting, not understanding.

By Matt Haw

With the warm drystack 

of refuge at my back I watch 

two roll-on / roll-off ferries 

pass in the summer dusk