The Blue Whale (Natural History Museum, London) The mandibles look like the tusks of some gigantic bull elephant bagged by hunters posing for a photograph in pith helmets next to a tent and a wind up phonograph. I reckon the Titanic’s ballroom band could easily have played inside the blue whale’s mouth. I can almost hear an echo of song full of the blood and guts of the sea that haunt harpoonists in their deep dreams. The blue whale is slowly diving from the vaulted ceiling of the cathedralesque museum to the marble floor, as schools of kids swim up between its ribs, teachers shouting at them to come down, right now!       Gary Jude is from London. For many a year now, he has lived and worked in Bern, Switzerland. He has been published variously across magazines and journals.

Aldgate had its usual smell of dirty metal and coffee. I jumped from platform to carriage. I squeezed beside a Tate Britain poster, clutched the grab-handle. When I chanced a glance, I saw I was the only one standing. Everyone else was wearing spacesuits.

we groan as the mercury hikes
climbing with the ball of fire
the Hot Weather Warning surrenders its flag
feels like 40 and it’s only May Day

-Winifred Mok

where geese balance on one leg
sleeping inside themselves
until they wake for hours of sun
and swimming

-Sandra Noel

You are walking in a half empty street. Carrying a rifle, you are hunting for canned food. Sultry evening falls like an electrified blanket, leaving you breathless. The world you know is long gone. The world has already surrendered to the heat waves followed by water wars, hunger wars. And hunger is a crazy carnivore in your belly. You turn a corner to see two rifles. Pointed at you. You shoot the air calmly.

-Özge Lena

I might eat more slowly, breathe more deeply the fragrance of nettle steep, be more mindful of
the miracle of vegetables of promising colour glinting in the oil of a pan, I might grind my molars
with the thought close that their substance, too, is borrowed from the minerals of the ground

-Alannah Taylor

I feel the sun, its love and anger,
a baked red brick rubbed
on the back of my calves.
Hiking in a binder was a shit idea,
My lungs reach to surface, come short.

It Starts Before Birth

Your tadpole-self, displayed to strangers for a thumbs-up.
Then childhood illnesses, faithfully documented.