Take my advice and don’t shop locally. You’re shocked? I know, everyone says that shopping locally will save the high street, crucial to stopping those capitalist conglomerates taking over the planet. Blah, blah, blah. Some people (you may know one of these people) even take the choice out of your hands and give you one of those ‘gift vouchers’, forcing you on to the crowded pavements of your own hometown, instead of buying cheap shoes online from the comfort of your bed at 3

You’re seven when I fracture my wrist, still young enough to believe in magic. You buy a kilo of spinach from the grocery store with pennies saved from mowing lawns. It’s wilted and limp. (There’s a variety named Black Magic, but you couldn’t afford that.) You boil it in Gran’s cast iron pot, which you struggle to lift from the stovetop. You feed me spoons of gleaming, emerald pulp that you’re sure you’ve enchanted, and stare at my limbs as if willing my brittle bones to mend

Field Elm you rose-breasted sapsucker in your distinctive crown & hockey stick what is a field elm worth anyway? wood pulp & paper making underworlds this melancholy ulmus minor, companion to warblers & red-bellied woodpeckers, resistant to splitting at risk for twig blight likes an open field along a river & interlocking grains, she’s low-maintenance but ornamentally appealling prone to Dutch elm disease drought-tolerant & deciduous to the Northern hemisphere The most intere

folding my ear lobe to avoid nicking tender skin as the clippers travel across my scalp crop hum he concentrates blind in the right eye limited central vision in the left i like my buzzcuts everything must be in its place where did you put the tin opener? predictable you’ve left the kitchen drawer open again my dyspraxia his sight loss like a sitcom (perhaps i should write one) the laundry basket left in the middle of the room a trip hazard after i g

biomorphic geometry magic genes are magic beans making the stalks grow strange ly creates re / sist / ance cropping fractured treebones eek-o-log-y herbicidal maniacs engineering re /vers / al lang leah in the swathe of densely annotated corridors everything becomes a poem the ivory render splayed / shimmering/ lurking among the dark conifers / b

When you catch me at the kitchen table, with 2am eyes, snapping my fingers back until collateral ligaments outburn the hate inside, you blanket the flame. Tell me not to hurt myself like that. You put match to gas, slosh the kettle into place. I catch your concern, use it to hold my shattered shame in check. My brittle pieces are part of our history. You kiss my forehead, matter of fact, turn, and land teabags in each cup, begin the fixing. Mending the cracks in me like a sma

Note: previously published in Two Drops of Ink Every year local and migratory birds fly to Jatinga only to commit suicide. They die as the fog descends down the mountains around the valley,like a bride And they rush towards the giggling light, get hit by long bamboo trees and die" You see, the first time I looked at you from a distance, I knew you were going to be the death of me. I, like those silly birds, flew towards the halo of your being and crashed on your body A deep c

Flash points are omnipresent in our shared lives. You trail crumbs of disruption through our rooms. I fail to meet your impotent, angry surmises about Sun readers. You other those many who you deem ignorant, subservient enablers of our Tory rulers. You fail to listen when I urge for dialogue to cross chasms. You remain stuck in elite echo chambers and Twitter-fed silos. Why do you pontificate, as if to call out injustice is your sole prerogative. I re-arrange the mugs in our

“I knew these would come in handy one day,” Marsha says, wedging the last tote bag into the truck of her car. Years ago canvas tote bags were a popular gift item. Marsha received many from family and friends. Now all those bags are stacked neatly in her car, filled with books, clothes, and household items. She shuts the trunk and walks around to the passenger side. Her cats, Daffodil and Dandelion, are huddled in a big cat carrier, growling at each other. “Behave,” she scolds

Juan-Pablo Martínez Cajiga was born in Mexico on a Monday. He writes about life, family and football in Revista Puskas and Revista Purgante, which he also co-edits. His first Children's Picture Book "¿En dónde estás, A?" (A, where are you?) is out now with Editorial Gato Blanco. His visual poetry has been published in Streetcake Magazine and various Mexican publications. He's also been know to dabble in graphic design.