Black Milk
Five interlinking short stories about a troubled 12 year old and her attempts to navigate the overwhelming landscape of puberty, her mother and the Smokey Haze disco, Black Milk a is published by Albion Beatnik Press and available from albionbeatnik.co.uk for £4 plus p&p.

and the cook came out
finished for the night
in his buttoned over black
dusted with tortilla flour
came right to where I sat and
took his cigarette from his mouth
and put it in the hand that held his beer
and like a randy dog and rude
pulled me fingers hard from the oven
into him and put his tongue across my neck
and laughing held me there inside the music
pinned against his thigh
while outside on the street the packs of wild dogs
hungry baying swerve across the road
it’s night
and night belongs to them

listen
the world has something for you
everything
she is wet with wild and waiting
i know you are thirsty
drink
don’t go back to sleep

like a jackal he comes across the street
diagonal relentless nosing into half light
direction food and fucking and somewhere soft to rest his head
the sun’s already half way up
and the night was long
a paper cup rolls to give him way:
here he’s king

i am sick
there is so much I want
love a horse the moon
you to keep wanting me like that
and more. always more
the doctor prescribes taking off my shoes
at least three times a day
it’s how he says the women in Guatemala
won their battle against monsanto
against the genetically modified rapaciousness
which breeds death and want
and then more of it
their sturdy toes splayed in the red earth
their words coming like arrows straight from the heart of it

lamp of your great moose heart searches
riding over tree and shadow
nosing blunt into the forest
i skip among trees
quick as spit
leaping fences stubbing out my laughter in my own hand
ducking into where you aren’t
you raise your face blowing on the sharp air
one two three

look
i’m high above your head
holding to the last wisp of a dandelion clock
tears bursting from my face
we have only time left to play in
which is why you pretend you can’t find me
and I pretend I can’t be found