Tiny birds used to line up 
at the foot of the bunkbeds we shared.
Just for you—I could never see them.
Mum would tell me to go back to bed, 
a cold flannel pressed to your head.
But I wanted to see the birds. 

You could see the wind too.
We all told you it was just the rain
or the trees that it blew,
but you could see the wind 
and now I want to see it too. 

But you don’t see birds anymore, nor wind. 
Two kids, one job and not enough to go around
But still, you fill their bedrooms 
with 100 balloons on their birthdays, 
and I want to see that;
I want to see them wake up to that. 

Lesson 1: Metaphors and similes
What do your white lines and smooth sides represent?

Lesson 2: Poetry
What meaning can I chime from your rhythm and your rhyme?

Lesson 3: Memoir
Where have you travelled, what have you learned?

Lesson 4: Folklore and myth
What tall tales have you heard, what truth do they hold?

Lesson 5: Non-fiction
I am a fool. You are a rock, inanimate. 

Alone now, I lower myself 
out of the storm-weary, 
pea-green boat
into cold, dark water;
rope and hope 
between my teeth.
My feet dance in nothingness, 
until sand meets toes,
light on the horizon,
and home. 

I will send you a thank you card to thank you for your thank you card.
I will copy out poems and fold them carefully into envelopes for you. 
I will send you every jellyfish card I ever see 
simply because you once told me that you liked them. 
It might get weird, but I won’t let that stop me.
I will send a card to arrive home before you do
so there’s something nice for you to arrive home to.
I will send you vintage Cornish postcards just incase you are homesick.
I will send you an ink drawing that accidentally turned out like a boob 
because it made me laugh and laughing at a boob made me think of you. 
“I saw this and thought of you”?  If I see it and think of you;
know that I will send it to you. 
I will clip recipes from magazines I wish I could make for you.
I will send you handmade bookmarks, even though I know you favour a dog-ear. 
Every year, I will send you a card on the anniversary 
of that awful thing that happened to you, but never tell you why.
I will send you a “congratulations on your new desk” card,
not because you got a new job, but because you actually did get a new desk. 
I will receive a note from the CEO of a letterbox florist thanking me for my custom, 
but I will send you brownies on moving day because who unpacks a vase before the kettle? 
I will not send you a Christmas card (the hype and expectation is too much),
but I will never miss a birthday.
So, asking for your home address?
That’s me saying: “can we be friends?” 

Elastic bands 
dropped roadside.
Unfamiliar cars,
bring unfamiliar men.
Wide-legged stance,
bent at the waist.
Gooseneck buds bent too, 
just starting to hue.
Grasp and pull,
grasp and pull,
grasp and pull…
At ten, cat gut:
wrap, squeeze, cut. 
800 times a day,
for 70 days’ 
minimum wage. 
But all worthwhile, right?
for that 99p supermarket smile.

Ov vy Kernowes?

Hager awelyow ha keow ov vy.

Gorwelyow glas ov vy.
Gorwelyow bras ov vy.

Gwenili ov vy.
Ahwesydhes ov vy.

Lagatorres ov vy yn enbronyow bras.
Kyfeyth kynsa ov vy.

Tewedhow gwyls ha portho salow ov vy.
Tarmak tommy n dann treys noth ov vy.
Stummor dall v vy.

Neurvya noth yn lorgan ov vy.
Kregyn brenigen ha gomman ov vy.
Glas bras ov vy.

Slynkya war nans tweynnow war servyours te ov vy.
Terlentrow howl war an mor ov vy.

Skeusow hir a wyrwels hav ov vy.
Brini ow sewya jynn pursornas yn dann embronyow hav hager ov vy.

Kernowes ov vy.

Am I Cornish?

I am high winds and high hedges.

I am green horizons.
I am sea horizons.

I am swallows.
I am skylarks.

I am wide-eyed in big skies.
I am jam first.

I am wild storms and safe harbours.
I am hot tarmac beneath bare feet.
I am blind bends.

I am moonlit skinny dips.
I am limpet shells and bladderwrack.
I am big blue.

I am sliding down towans on tea trays.
I am sunshine sparkles on the sea.

I am the long shadows of tall summer grasses.
I am crows, following a hay-baler, under a stormy summer sky.

I am Cornish. 

I don’t sit at my desk all day 
waiting for poems to arrive.
Sure, sometimes they come to me
unexpectedly, in the shower or in the car.
But mostly I go looking for them 
on the beach, in the woods, 
in dusky mackerel skies.
I might find one flapping in the wind; 
it’s penultimate sentence snagged 
on a bramble in a hedgerow,
Or spot one looking up at me;
a reflection in a rockpool. 
A robin may start her merry melody 
and all I need do is catch the words 
From there, it’s like catching a butterfly, 
(though much less cruel).
Pin it down too quickly 
and it dies a dull death on the page.
No, I must let it flutter awhile,
in my mind, in my mouth, 
until I have seen, heard it, 
from every angle;
until I am sure I know 
what it has to say. 
Only then, if I still have it, 
if it still feels true, 
may I write it down, 
perchance to read it 
out loud to you.

Up North, they call you love
But down here, 
it’s ‘my love’, ‘my lover’
Down here, 
you are not just love, lover, loved
But owned, possessed, 
the moment you’re addressed. 
Down here, my love, 
you belong. 

They’re painting our roundabouts, red, white and blue
Telling us they're proud and we should be too,
while they throw bottles at people like me and you.

They’re painting our roundabouts blue, red and white
shouting ‘not all men,’ demanding straight pride,
policing our bodies, our …

I ask an oystercatcher I meet on the beach what he’s up to. 
‘Eating mussels’ he tells me. 
‘They’re right here on the wave-licked rocks.’
‘No catching or oysters involved, huh?’
As a poet who has spent the day walking, 
and thinking, and picking up pebbles
I don’t know what to tell him. 
We can’t all fulfil our destiny every day. 

What if our chest cavity contained
not a bloody, red, beating heart
but a tiny, blue, spinning planet?
“We are nature,” the environmentalists tell us, “nature is us,”
so what if instead of all around us, mother nature resided inside every one of us?
And what if our tiny blue planets’ ice caps were melting 
releasing their ancient pat…

A text message sends us running to the spare room, 
hanging out of the window, squinted eyes North.
‘Is it?’ ‘Can you see?’ ‘Maybe—what’s that?’
‘Look! Green. Now there, red.’
‘Wow, I’ve got to call my Dad.’
My 83-year-old father who calls me to tell me to look at the moon, 
who ent…

I don’t want the Instagram-filtered version of your face. 
I want the laughter lines that only I can trace
— back to that time on the train
that we vowed never to speak of again.

I don’t want to the tidy version of your house,
all hoovered floors and plumped up cushions. 
I want the messy one, with extra people, 
and too much …

At five, your teacher will make you promise to send her a copy of your first book,
It’s important that you remember her faith in you. 
At nine, you will look at authors' photos on book jackets and believe.
It’s important that you keep believing; keep seeing yourself there.
At 11 you will pen a story in an exercise book and win second place.
That’s enoug…

We hoover up the crumbs of Christmas
and while we’re at it, 
fold festivities away, tidy comfort and joy
into a box in the attic. 

We usher in abstinence; 
more fitting for these dark winter days,
switch out the chocolate for chores
and plan all the ways that we’ll change.

But what this time really calls for is more joy
and, as…

The WI announces it will no longer accept trans women, 
hot on the heels of the same from the Brownies and Guides.
Women, girls, now defined by an ‘F’ on a form,
allocated at birth based on physical norms. 
A High Court decision, you see. Biology. 
Because X and Y make XX for a girl and XY for a boy
just like you were taught as school. 
But did you know…

I am in a strange town
on a cold unfamiliar morning
checking the map twice,
afraid I’ll miss my train. 

And then the man at the coffee cart,
once a stranger to these lands too,
smiles wide and, with his whole heart, 
says: “Good morning.”

Our carpets bulge uneasily
from all that’s swept underneath
– the broom complicit too.

Our parents walk unsteadily
from all that’s left unsaid
– us children complicit too.

And yet still we sweep. 

My husband laughs
every time I Elastoplast
my grown-up cuts.

But I remember
looking up from a grazed knee
to see them walking away.

‘Stop those crocodile tears,”
they said. “No buts.”

So I will keep applying ‘magic’ cream
and a quiet, subtle kiss
until little me knows this…

that no hurt is too minor to be shared,
and no cut is t…