When we stole the eggs from the barn that June 
you said we held life in our hands. 

Untrue I said as I carried a near score 
in my upturned t-shirt. 

And even if I could hold one 
it would never get born 

not in those hands that you let 
be put on you 

or in the grass nest we made 
smelling of piss-yellow sunshine 

or by us two, old enough to ourselves 
be parents 

but still going round like foxes 
wasting things other people might like to use.

 


James Leo McAskill was born in Manchester in 1989. He is a Master’s graduate of the University of Glasgow, where he studied Literature and Writing. He has since moved to Southern Europe, first Sicily, and now Lisbon, where he lives and works.

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