New Writing
On dressing up as Dracula to come out to your parents
Kirsty Irving
You thought it would break the tension, but
after sweeping in and trying to confess,
through a faux-Romany accent and 20p fangs
that you kiss boys and always will,
there is still a frozen lake of silence
between you.
After a few minutes
your mother
speaks, only to check
whether this means
you will be dressing like this from now on.
Your father says nothing, clutches
his rolled up Times like a stake.
Kirsty Irving lives in Whitechapel. She co-edits Fuselit. Her debut pamphlet of poems is due out from tall-lighthouse in 2010.
New poetry
How now we scare ourselves by Caleb Klaces
A Music Box with a Ballerina by Karen McCarthy
Get Parochial! by Luke Wright
When all my disappointments came at once by Todd Swift
The Subprime Lending Crisis Explained as Twelve Points of Punctuation by Sarah Hesketh
You Are The Weather by Sophie Mayer
Vanishment by Adam Horovitz
The Flat on Los Caballeros by Katrina Naomi
Malignants by Jon Stone
Mon divine by Posie Rider
Oh dear oh dear oh dear by Posie Rider
On dressing up as Dracula to come out to your parents by Kirsty Irving
The Sad Girl Waiting at the Mouth of the Pit by Kirsty Irving
Visitors’ Book by Steven Waling
Punk Upgrades to First Class by Alistair Noon
Four Gospels by Jane Commane
The Ruined Chapel by Simon Turner
Four poems from the Japanese by Simon Turner
New fiction
The Before and After by Natasha Soobramanien
Pink Flamingo Soup by Brian Kelly
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