by Jacklyn Irwin

I climb on top of my huge,
strong friend,
a horse called ‘Cricket.’
He is warm 
and I can feel his body
moving and flexing
beneath me
under my legs.

I feel his power
but I am not afraid.
He carries me carefully
and steadily
along pathways in nature.

I love it
when it rains
softly on us both.
I feel connected
to the living energy
of the world.

Thank you, Cricket.
You give me joy.

Jacklyn Irwin was a non-speaking young woman who belonged to the Sunshine Coast Writer’s group and The Brotherhood of the Wordless. Her work has been published in anthologies of both groups as well as Prism, A collection of Contemporary International Poetry. Creative writing was a great passion of hers.

by ​Rida Zulfikar

/ sau- li- tiyude / 
[Noun]: a hitch in birdsong ; error in autumn 

“In silence, music / is heard louder, i press my / ears to my pulses” 

See also:
Reflection | egg splitting | drumbeat | weight of water in my eyes | 
|drumbeat | reflection traces waves in my hair |
| oh, drumbeat | 
|emotion and reason | drumbeat |
| I am split into two |
| alone || alone || alone||  

FAQs: 
1) the waves bring back dead corals; can I please go back home?
→ remember, foot crushing grass
→ remember, paper cutting clean through skin
→ remember, hands clutching each other alone

2) and so what does it take to break an orbit?
→ blood seeping on glass-threads
→ the cobweb succumbing to the brush
→ planet whizzing by, lost.

3) and so when does a reflection look back at you?
→ edge-cutting words, heavy words, words i dress myself up in
→ between lips, dead butterfly wings 
→ stars copy-pasted on to-do’s 

​Rida Zulfikar is a poet living in Chandigarh, India. She has been published in the Journal of Undiscovered Poets, InkPantry, Visual Verse and more, and has authored The First Few Tiles of The Road. She is also the editor-in-chief of Mollusk Literary Magazine- dedicated to empowering writers and poets.

​

by Rebecca Brown

We lounge under the duvet,
my limbs in yours,
making plans for the park.

I place sliced grapes
and bear-shaped crisps
under your expectant noses.

You tell me you love me 
so much,
over and over again.

We watch each other closely,
ready to worry at the first hint
of a tear falling.
 
I tidy the scattered puzzle pieces
and wide-eyed baby dolls,
muttering unconvincingly

as if I don’t love 
every second. 
If only I could express

these golden moments,
sweet and strong as honeycomb,
are as good as it gets.

Rebecca Brown (she/her) is a disabled mother with incurable breast cancer. She started writing when the hospice gave her a gratitude journal. Once she started, she could not stop! She shares her experience growing up disabled and living with cancer.  Rebecca has had poems published in Wishbone Words and Recesses.

by Sophie Finlay 

I. Gastropods

some coil flesh-pink,
lips lined with teeth
an aperture whorls to an apex.
within the extraordinary 
geometry of retreat
a mollusced body 
nestles in the silken
innermost layer--
the nacre of the shell

II. Nudibranchs

boneless, they shed their shells
after the larval stage.
with branching, naked gills
and soft horns
the nudibranchs feed 
on algae, sponges, coral
and sometimes each other,
absorbing the hues
of what they eat--
skins bulging with colour
and poison

III. Jewel anemones

a blush of footed pink, 
each tentacle has a tiny bud 
at the tip--
coloured more brightly
than the body of the polyp
and resembling a jewel
or a dew drop,
the ocean gives birth
to luminous forms

IV. Seahorses

an abdomen of bony rings
a coronet of filaments--
sensing with delicate fibres.
fins that allow the seahorses 
to hover above the ocean floor
like hummingbirds
and suck tiny shrimps
into their snouts.
tails to curl around
the kelps and grasses--
to hold-on in the sea-channels.
a seahorse father 
has a nursery pouch
in which he can adjust 
salinity levels,
preparing his babies 
to pour into the sea

Sophie Finlay is a visual artist and poet. She lives, works and creates on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. Her poetry is published in multiple journals including Meanjin, Australian Poetry Journal, Cordite Poetry Review, Plumwood Mountain journal and more. She has also been a finalist in several art prizes including the John Leslie Art Prize and the Salon des Refuses exhibition, Lethbridge Landscape Prize. Sophie is currently a PhD candidate in literary studies and creative writing at Deakin University.

by Daniel Fuller

The mayflies have ever danced there
in the cool sunlight, at the closing of the day,
given over to lament
and the sad, loping songs playing on the radio.
 
The branches about them make art
of the muted wood on the walls
and it is time to let go
time for me to make unhappy watercolours of myself
 
—the day has abandoned colour now
and this hour draws something wretched from my voice
such that I can forget this city
and almost speak in the manner of colonial streets.
 
To speak nothing of the gap between
evenings spent on buses in a place big enough for my tragedy
and this hateful serialism
from which a yearning cello rises and falters, like rain.

Daniel Fuller (he/him/sé/é) is a British-Irish writer and musician. Currently based in Oslo, he draws inspiration from land and country, as well as the personal and relational. His work has been published in Rust + Moth, The Madrigal and The North Magazine, and was shortlisted in the 2020 Bridport Prize.