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.

 

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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.