... Ah! Them's were the days... A bit of nostalgia here, produced at a recent workshop on the use of colour in poetry (focussing on just one, in this instance). There was no figgy pudding for me THAT day, I seem to remember, but the thickness of the ice on the milldew pond was divine for body-skating... perhaps I didn't mention that! May this Christmas and New Year Season find you all in the best of tempers, healthy and expectant of good things to come - or, at least, ever-hopeful of such! Wishing you much mistletoe and merriment.... :)) Kate xx

WINTER WARMING


My cheeks burned with humiliation
as your fury collided with my rage,
the raw flat of your hand hard
on the mottled flesh
of my winter-chilled thigh.

All we could see was red;
rags to each other’s bull,
we locked horns with
words’ heated exchange.

By firey sundown, all was forgiven –
the mark of your lipstick a butterfly
soft on the bedtime blush
of my eight-year old brow;

my trembling, red-breast robin heart
puffing out its chest.