“I think you take me to be a witch myself.”– James VI & I, Daemonologie I. His birth chased death from his mother’s rooms, delivered from Mary’s womb as summer turned  its first corner outside the little window, warmth of morning spinning up steep wynds and closes. Here is the newborn prince, his face tilted…

one last letter, addressedto my royal brother, one lastsignature to append. i scratchwords slow, deliberate as thefeet shuffle and men mumbleoutside the door that separatesme from what they believe mustbe certain doom. suddenlyrushed though they haven takenyears to take measure, to findthe exact coordinates to placeme in the careful square…

two treaties1,two sides,three deeds & signatures forthem all, allowedby the future queen-dauphin,everyone’s docile little paragon. in the beginning, it is loveand light and never the possibilitythat anything could turn dark,here in the glittering courtof my adoptive country. how is it you say there isa blot, the first blot(of many) on my…

If years from now archaeologists excavate our life togetherthey’ll uncover a entire culture, a civilisation.They’ll create a typology of our artifacts, the forks and kniveswe selected that year we moved into our third flat,the curve of them, the weight, the quality. They’ll reconstruct the chronology of our mugcollection, understand the stratigraphy…

When we drove past that farmMomma would always say that her Auntie would always saythat those little hillswere the kind of hillswhere the Little People liked to stay. I’d ask if anyone ever said they saw themand she would say“no, but the Old People believedthat they were good luck even ifthey liked mischief.” …

From crumbling house, hole in the yard, corpsecollected, curated in jars. Ownerarrested, no explanation, remorsewill end upon a gallows, a loner,in due course.  One remains to be dealt with,taken away, adolescent in ragstoo young to stay all alone in this filth,her father’s crime scene. Her moth-bitten baginside a carriage pristine, relations will…

In cheval mirror you will stare, pilfered brush, poised in mid-air, like serrated blade a stranger proffered late last night — silver lessons against your rib cage, light. Made a dimming map — organs, veins — bloodlettingexplained, damp skin, arterial spray,how deep daggers descend in denouementof tragedy.  Close your eyes, not to pray, see skeletons resembling…

Every night we are afraidwe shut our eyeswe reveal ourselves to the night & to our blanketsas the dwarves of Auschwitz were revealed to Josef Mengele.They took us from the orphanage in a dump truckbacked up to a fire pit,we tumbled out,Josef Mengele & the SS officers burst out of the foreston motorcycles circling the flames.To each other…

for every choice, there is a universe where you made a different choice.  I’m driving alone, and the sun is in my eyes, And it’s so loud inside my headSo loud, I just want quiet I just want to run out of this car until I hear nothingBut the harsh sound of…

Crumpled on the floor againlike a sad verse struck through,blacked out, never to be read aloudI crawl into bed, legs heavy from carrying the weight of worries.I’ve lost track of time again—bury my head in a pillow, hiding in its soft folds, stroking my own cheek, breathing into pain hard and…