Hunter / Gatherer
Know unenviable tradition / the sharpening of swords / a gatheringof pyramids / starches / sweet berries / Beauregard
Carve furrows hard fought / as steel blunts / our outgrown
clothes / in a town peeling away scales / wriggling free / from
the whole skin
When there’s nothing else to do but eat / write out prescriptions
/ for slow hearts and arms / the removal of clots
Beetroot purpling / pale palms
In four corners / paint me in vanilla / there is gratefulness in
pretence / that all I am / is relentless fate / something
predetermined
My nature cut out with scissors / that somehow / there is joy
in learning how to kill
Late Afternoon as a Metaphor for Entrapment
Stuart McPherson is a poet living near Leicester, UK. Recent poems have appeared in Butcher’s Dog, Osmosis Press, Beir Bua Journal, The6Press and Selcouth Station. His debut pamphlet Pale Mnemonic was published by Legitimate Snack in April 2021. The pamphlet Waterbearer was published in December 2021 by Broken Sleep Books. A debut full length collection Obligate Carnivore will be published by Broken Sleep Books in August 2022. Twitter: @theeabsentee
Art: “Stress Lines”, a Visual poem by Robert Frede Kenter. Twitter: @frede_kenter
IceFloe Press 