Poems for workshop - 20th January 2026
Aurora Borealis by Jasmine Cooray I smuggled his ashes across Norway in a soap box, shook them into one hand, and threw. The grain of him left my frozen palms, rose into the arctic air – icy jaws opening to catch him – but some clung to my skin as if he knew I didn’t really want this goodbye, this flame to photograph. I wanted his face to appear in the glow, voice rumbling like Mufasa, longed for him to speak from the dizzying black: I’m here, Baba. I kissed my palms, powder lodged in fingerprint and lifeline. I didn’t yet know the ways in which he would return, cartwheel across the skies of me, leave me shivering in his wake. And Then It Was Less Bleak Because We Said So by Wendy Xu Today there has been so much talk of things exploding into other things, so much that we all become curious, that we all run outside into the hot streets and hug. Romance is a grotto of eager stones anticipating light, or a girl whose teeth you can always see. Wit...