Other Lives

I'm delighted to be able to post a poem from Michelle McGrane's recent collection 'The Suitable Girl', published by Pindrop Press . Princesse de Lamballe He skewers my matted, blonde head on a pike, shows me the city's less-fêted sights: growling alleys and ravenous back streets guttered with urine, nightsoil and vermin; toothless, frayed women queuing for bread, each coarse, weevilled loaf fourteen copper sous; the Hôpital des Quinze-Vingt's shuffling inmates tapping for alms amid the stalls of Les Halles; Saint-Marcel tanneries' frame-stretched hides kneaded supple with beef greaves and brains; the Seine choked with debris and tangled milfoil, a carcass sliding into the Pont Neuf's shadows. The Queen's playing tric-trac in the tower, twenty guards flanking the Temple's iron portal. She's raised the stakes, the bone dice clattering across the pearwood and ebony board. The scrofulous sans-culotte belting Ça Ira braces my face to the crosshatc...

Lunar Postcards I. Moondust Two hours ago, we docked at Crater Plaskett's northern rim. Plumes of spent gunpowder eructed from the landing strip spinning into galaxies and starfields. It clings to our helmet visors, sifts into our spacesuits, fine jagged particles infiltrating hinges and joints, scratching equipment, shrouding instrument dials with an electrostatic film. II. Hadley Rille I am writing from a lava tube at Hadley Rille, near the Sea of Rains. We spent the day gathering silica-rich soil, shattered rocks, glassy fist-sized specimens sampled from the basalt crust. The Lunar Roving Vehicle has exceeded all expectations. Jack and his crew will be pleased. I look forward to your news. III. Space Gourmet We season freeze-dried macaroni with liquid salt and pepper. Water is distilled, recycled from our breath and sweat. After a week of granola bars, nuts and bitter orange juice, the Commander's arm begins to look tasty. IV. Counting Clusters At night, the lunar module ti...