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2209: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown: #7 (catch-up with all episodes here) Dead Men Don’t Drown When I tell the volunteer that Jacob Macleod was my grandfather, her face changes by the smallest degree, not surprise exactly, but the expression of a woman who has just heard a floorboard answer back. She does not ask whether I…
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2209: The Liturgy
Liturgy number 07 Dead Men Don’t Drown “Liturgy for the Sea That Refused”(for the man who became paper, and the wave that said no) I. The Reduction of a Man to PaperThey gave you a file.Not a body.Not a burial.Not the salt-scoured bonesthe sea should have surrenderedafter the proper amount of grieving. They gave you…
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The Old Woman With No Cat
The Birthday Surprise(Or: A Cat’s Guide to Celebrating Humans) The Old Woman wakes to find the kitchen transformed.Streamers (chewed, slightly).Balloons (deflated, mostly).And the cat, perched on the table,wearing a paper crown he clearly made himself(it says “KING KNUT” with a drawingof a sardine where the jewel should be). “Happy birthday,” he announces.“I have planned everything.You…
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Ten Things of Thankful
I. Faith in all its universal varied forms, and for friends who hold one not higher than another. There is something deeply civilised in making room for reverence without turning it into a contest. II. Thankful for gargoyles — gloriously grotesque, beautifully expressive, and still managing to communicate across the centuries. Some faces simply refuse…
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1609: Dead Men Don’t Drown
Dead Men Don’t Drown: #6 (catch-up with all episodes here) The next morning I take the spaniels’ silence in hand to the local history room above the museum, not because I have never heard of Love Dogs, but because family knowledge is a slippery thing and I want paper beneath it. A volunteer with hair…
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1509: The Liturgy
Liturgy for the Proof in the Photograph(for the moment the past confirms what you thought) I. The Search Through the Silent FacesYou spread them out like evidence;photographs that have waited in drawers,their corners curled, their colours fading,their smiles fixed in a time you never lived. You are not looking for memories,but proof.A face. A shadow…
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1409: A Six – SSC&B Alcove
The Alcove #3 Strikethrough Salisbury District Hospital; Wednesday; rain crawls streaks down the sky window; TV on mute the TV mutters silently; the medicine trolley rattles in the hallway beyond the door; my tea cools beside his cloudy juice; he says everything the air tastes metallic of foil; the oximeter pops slips from his finger; alarms set the room complaining, and oh how we laugh. He…
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The Old Woman With No Cat
The Cat’s Afternoon Philosophy The cat watches the Old Woman layer pickle on ham then cheese on a slice of bread, “Think of a sunbeam as a door,” begins the cat, “Step into it.You are gold.Warm.You are exactly where you should be. Then it moves.The door closes.You are you again, slightly chilled,slightly wronged. This is…
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1109: Everywhere Poems
6 Sept ’26: A Week of Everywhere Poems I.“they’re called flittermouse,”I tell him, as two batsplay with twilight. II.he eats an applethat the wind knockedfrom the tree. one footrests on a step, the other legspans four. III.sunset caughtin a cloudracing against the clocktoward France. IV.the windows opento the white sound of windthe lawn finds greenagainslowly.…
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Ten Things of Thankful
This has been a very good week, despite the sober appearance of the woman above — moments of reflection, discovery, and connecting with a change in the weather. I. Bookshelves! Once, our long wall was covered with them, now we have four: reference, cookery books, road maps folded along old journeys, mementoes tucked between them…
