Stella Read

while I waited for a connecting flight in the Lisbon airport I found myself seated opposite an elderly man in a red hat bearing, in bold script Hot Stuff he looked a bit timid air puffs foot shuffles the man’s eyes widened his lady returned from the loo she smiled coyishly at seated onlookers eyebrow raised yes, it’s true

reading Leonard Cohen by candlelight, visualizing bonfire night, your birthday were you still alive under that streetlamp, we could walk together to your bench and talk awhile it’s what we always did best— just talk, just care I’ll print this poem in a lonely font and burn it in a bowl, set the ashes facing east next time it storms

blue jays build a nest in the pine, swallows migrate overhead, wren in and out of the compost, centipede in beak behind the fence children screech, entitled neighbours don’t distance from friends, posture, to sear game meat drink, smoke, snort we sip coffee in the comfort of inverse snobbery, snicker that their RV is worth more than our house and contents, exchange snide whispers, our quiet, spoiled from...