The Honey Jar

Harvey

In the pub, at my little table. Yesterday’s paper, Blair’s secret note to Bush — I will be with you, whatever. Tony, I’ll hold your coat while you blow up the world. beside it, a warm gin and tonic going flat, and a tin of cashews gone soft on the sticky wood. the country pretends

Waiting for Mary

truck stop glowing under fluorescence, bloodshot eyes everywhere. long-haul drivers slumped in the corners. builders with cement dust still in their hair and travelling salesmen chasing the next few quid. cheap knives scraping grease off the plates. old coffee stains dried deep into the formica. above the jukebox, a chalkboard menu with blue and white

The Seafood Special

Saturday night in the pub, and the old man sat hunched over his plate like the weight of every wasted year had finally pinned him there. he sneezed into the crook of his elbow, the same childhood tic that eighty-odd years couldn’t burn out of him. a long, glistening strand of snot stretched from his

St Augustine’s

marked cards and letters filled the top drawer of the old writing desk — two long years of them, correspondence and poems and notes of love and want, all folded away in the quiet dark. he remembered the gate to her front door, the narrow path through the garden where lavender and rosemary and basil