MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
It might have escaped from a laboratory:
a biological curiosity
with the body of an octopus
but no limbs, a pudgy
limpid belly, jellified cheeks
and bulging condom eyes
with a Double Decker wrapper
for a tongue. The flushers
discovered its mother
snoozing in Whitechapel’s bowels
swaddled in a blanket of fat
a recumbent stalagmite
of discarded wet wipes
bringing London’s movements to a halt.
Now a gang of riveted children
gasp at a quivering sliver
caged behind strengthened glass
as it spawns an army of small flies
and wonder at the perversity
of a monstrous sculpture
carved out of our own bodies,
a disgusting portrayal in oils
of a terrible time of waste.
by Mary Gilonne
by Alistair Findlay
by Rosie Jackson
by Christopher Norris



