Stephen Bone’s work has appeared in various journals in the U.K. and the U.S., and in numerous anthologies.
His first collection In the Cinema (Playdead Press) was published in 2014 and a pamphlet Plainsong (Indigo Dreams) was published in 2018.
Medlars
From the cupboard under your stairs
you pick one from its tray.
A sort of apple, open-ended,
on the turn.
Try, you urge, a spoon waved
like a hypnotist’s chain. Reluctantly,
a child braced for medicine I open up
to be fed a scoop of decay.
Good ? You ask, moist rot melting
to the cusp of sweetness. I tremble a nod
as you slough off your snakeskin boots;
coil yourself into a chair.
Stephen Bone
First published in The Interpreter’s House