The House Opposite by Hilary Hares

The house opposite
is allowed to sleep
through winter,

its cupboards hollow,
its corners scoured
of their spiders.

Winter Forest by Sanda Moore Coleman

A walk in the woods is not the same
as a walk in the park, of this much I am certain.

What Orpheus Did Not Know by Sanda Moore Coleman

What Orpheus did not know, of course,
was that she had flirted with death,
that the love-bite of the needle had already
pierced her skin

The Owls Gather to Watch by Rachel Burns

Pegged sheets flap
under a yellow moon

Girl in a Borrowed Cloak by Amanda Oosthuizen

She has fallen from the sky into this dark room where powdery graphite smudges her fingers, where the diamonds scattering the floor cut her feet. And outside the tide clock pounds.

Ghost Towns by Madison McSweeney

+++Some places are all history.
+++I grew up in what some would call a dying town. I don’t think that was an especially apt descriptor – “dying” implies an end is near. My town wasn’t approaching any inevitable end-point – it was just stuck in time. A place with a deep past, but no future.

The Afterlife by Bayveen O’Connell

+++++Ghosts are lifting my bones, sorting and weighing them. They are washing my femurs to hang curtains from, using my patellae as saucers.

Lilies for Lily by Meg Gripton-Cooper

I bought lilies for Lily,
my lunar girl, skybright and glowing.

Ghosts by Peter Burrows

‘Ghosts are what we fear and what we hope for.’ Adam Nicholson

I always believed in ghosts
Fearing the inevitable
That someday I would see one.

Playground by Scáth Beorh

+++‘I know where a weird playground is, Scooter.’

Ambleside by Tim Fellows

The old man leaned on the wall and looked at the house. It was, he had to admit, not the prettiest house.

Daemon by Maggie Mackay

When she was a child, we sat close by her father.
We learned together, symbols, figures, words
and how to piece them together.