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- Editorial
- ESSAY: 'Malta’s Jonah Complex' by Antoine Cassar
- ESSAY: Incongruity and Scale by Ivan Callus
- ESSAY: Writing on the Edge by Raphael Vella
- ESSAY: Mute Stage by Simone Spiteri
- ESSAY: On approaching a language from outside its crèche by Walid Nabhan
- PROSE: Monologue of the gravedigger by Clare Azzopardi
- PROSE: Four days by Immanuel Mifsud
- PROSE: I want to call out to Samirah by Pierre J. Mejlak
- PROSE: Gerita by Trevor Żahra
- PROSE: Everything is not by Walid Nabhan
- POETRY: Mario Azzopardi
- POETRY: Norbert Bugeja
- POETRY: Antoine Cassar
- POETRY: Joe Friggieri
- POETRY: Simone Galea
- POETRY: Adrian Grima
- POETRY: Maria Grech Ganado
- POETRY: Simone Inguanez
- POETRY: Nadia Mifsud
- POETRY: Albert Marshall
POETRY: Simone Galea
A day at the sea
The last time I went for a swim
the waves took me in, sweetly.
Is that how they took in the women
I read of who went for their last swim, is it?
I strained further,
pushed out.
If I tire there’s a boat there, it will take me.
Back at the shore
I saw the umbrellas that shaded me,
the comfort of chairs rested on in spells, fraught.
Further, further.
The lapping, the sun, the breeze,
loud reflections, in the loud colours
of dresses of African women,
their boats sunk, deep.
Slowly their faces rise, stretch to peer,
and I struck out quickly, the hope escape,
but they peaked more visibly
and I knew them
and they called,
go back
go back.
Morning Sickness
When I wake up with this sickness in my stomach
I know that I will give birth
to a thousand versions of your forgotten face.
A sickness so longed for
as the words that never come between us
and my need to throw up
your devouring eyes,
my erupting mind.
Your mischievous smile,
my widening lips whispering to me.
Your touch on my sides,
my writing hands emerging from my insides.
And I throw up
knowing that I have to give birth
to a thousand and one poems of your face within me.