Neptune’s Crown
my daughter pointed at it through the green murk and said, “Look, Daddy, Neptune’s crown.” it was just a goddamn hubcap off a Ford Mondeo, once chrome-bright and spinning proud on some salesman’s ride, half-shiny even when the rest of the car was coughing rust. one day the clips gave up — like everything else
The Bicycle
those were the days when nothing hurt yet, pedalling like a dumb kid through the maize fields of Southern Africa, dust choking the air, wire fences ripping at your legs if you got too close, the sun baking everything into one long stupid dream. then bam, over the handlebars, eating dirt, picking bloody gravel out
The Salty Dog
crank the burner. wait till the flame goes blue. throw in the capers, let them jump around like drunk bastards in the oil. anchovies too, those little pricks dissolving into the grease until they own the pot. slice the onions thin. garlic filling the room. and the green chillies flown in from Kenya. cut them
Rachel Kadinsky
red lips parted just enough to promise trouble, and me with my battered brass Zippo from ’86, hinge still catching like it remembered every heartbreak, grinding the wheel slow till the sooty flame whooshed up wild, orange-blue dancing the old cliche dance, kerosene stinging sweet right in the veins. she sucked hard on the New
Doctor Smirnov
there I was, sprawled in the dim light of my room, bottle half-empty on the floor, the drink going hot through me. I thought of Doctor Smirnov in the East End, his little practice with the cracked linoleum and the waiting room that smelled of old magazines and fear. I saw those posters on his