Mohammad Arada in his family home following an air strike, Rafah refugee camp, Southern Gaza strip (from a photograph)
After the F35s nothing solid as rubble. The linen chest’s panelled wood hangs slant, a jagged wall’s paper border is pink and cobalt diamonds on yellow. A sheet that was a door in tatters, a tarp that was a roof, frayed to sockets in a ghoul’s face. Ash and sticks. Ice-shelf greys reach out behind him like wraith fingers, yet he seems untouched in three-stripe T-shirt, (bright red), standing straight in blue joggers, a child’s face ridged with plump corrugations above dark eyes. Impossible to tell their colour. His shaved head is turned - he sees or hears something out of frame. Carried Away We expected forked lightning, white caps, spindrift, salt licked from lips - this is, after all, the real Shanghai. Wind picks our fingers that grip rails, numb hands wave at matchstick people gathered on the shore, we are specks of nothing yet have rarely felt so alive; it’s only when those spectral ships judder past and the pitch of your eyes rolls from cerulean to ash that we remember all that was now is then and every ripple in the mirror is a Corryvreckan. You are slaying serpents these days, talking to the Fentanyl mermaids; we cling, stubborn limpets, tell tales, point out shoals of silver sprats or tonight’s moon that blooms and hides some far-fetched horizon - you will find your island. Bent Back
My neck on cold enamel, an old towel on soap-stinged eyeballs, her yellow-tipped fingers, smell of Silk Cut and Chanel no. 5, her soft scold, Be a big girl now, my wailing grip on her shoulders and refusal to become manageable Cupping of his head, trickle and splash through milky grunts and mewling, warm slick of skin, grip of fingers, flail of limbs, strong already, pulse of the fontanelle, blink of seal’s eyes, a black sea, whispers in spent waves, shush, wee man Twitch and shuffle of translucent feet in sheepskin slippers, her body bowed, light as a whimper, my fingers slippery with Johnston’s Baby Shampoo, All done, the echo of our arms, cradling
Flight of the dragonfly 