– North Coast, April 2022

Nick Mulgrew

Receding now, the floodwater masquerades as ocean.

Every day the intertide rises further, approaching

the horizon in a parallel band: the coast is leaking grey;

even the dullest shades of blue desert the ruined bay.

We are surrounded by our surroundings, the foundations

now walls, the walls something else – rubble-cairns briskly masoned

and idle, memorials of brick immemorial.

Mangled fingers of rebar grasp from a rain-quarried hill

to the taunt of a fresh-sanded sky. A jumbo rakes by,

banking west, then north, to another where, another why.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 3 November 2022

It’s when I’m away from you

Antjie Krog

it’s when I’m away from you

that I’m suddenly overwhelmed

by a fear: what would my life

be like without you?

because suddenly I see you from a distance

how not at home you

go your own precise, inconspicuous way

with your silver ponytail down your back

and know how my whole life long

I’ve been able to depend on you

on your judgement

your stubborn moral compass

your unyielding empathy

your inflexible understanding and respect for me

your X-ray insight into my deepest decay

your brusque language

your soft heart your hard tongue

and that from wherever to whatever

I can always and always

come back to you

and that you’ll be glad to see me

I know also that inside

you’re filled with worry and stress

your powerlessness that you keep to yourself

and that sometimes, when you’re alone, you think

that I never loved you enough…

that I chose you as a refuge

and not as the consummation of fiery love

I embrace you through all the barriers of the poem

I have no patience with such spiteful slurs

I refuse to mine for arguments and proofs against them

I only know that the mere thought of you somewhere in the house

sooths my inflamed skin

let’s lie together and hold each other tight

and think intensely of this: we still have each other

how precious it is

that no disaster has struck us yet

that our bodies lie here together

old but wonderfully intact

I can lift my hand and cup your trusted cheek

I can close my eyes here against your chest

Your palm with its familiar nails

And beloved fingers around my shoulder

I can utter a word from the depths of myself

and your translucent inner self will answer me

we still have each other undamaged

let’s close our eyes and not look ahead

not burden ourselves with apprehensions of loss

not think of who will go first

not use the word surviving

the loneliness of it

let our thoughts not linger there

let us lie together, our bodies still raised above death

(Published in Pillage, NB Publishers, 2022)

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 1 November 2022

The FedEx Man Always Knocks Twice

Sheleen McElhinney

How many times have we been here, closing the door

against the outside as if we are prey, as if we are worthy

game, a prized head to hang on a wall, glass eyes

reflecting the hunter’s face? It’s not your fault.

Just last week a woman was murdered in a park nearby.

She was going for a run. She was running before running

meant not dying. It’s not your fault. Once, you were crouched

behind a bush til dark, shook from the guts out, while a man

slapped a pipe in his open palm, softly singing Here, kitty kitty

over the crunch of his boots. When you were 13,

the man working on your house was caught peering into

the window of your second floor bedroom as you toweled

yourself dry and looked for all of your vanishing underwear.

Your brother, when he was still alive, still here to protect

you, sat on the roof with a shotgun waiting

for that same man to come back around because brothers know

what men are capable of. Once, you accepted a gift in exchange

for rape. Once, a man who offered you a ride home drove you

to his house instead. Once, you left your drink unattended, woke up

in the backseat of a car full of sleeping girls and you could only save

yourself. You have seen your own funeral so many times. You have

clutched your own throat over and over with your own hands just to protect it

from someone else’s. Sweetheart, the man at the front door—

he is just delivering a package, he is just conducting a survey,

he is just here to check the meter. You know so many good men.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 27 October 2022