Our featured publication for December is Dawning by Mary Ford Neal, published by Indigo Dreams Publishing.

Dawning is an uncanny landscape in which people, events, and places are charged with magic, danger, and confusion, and nothing can be trusted. Against this background of fragmentation and threat, the poems lead the reader through a tender narrative of damage, grief, enlightenment, and alteration.

“Dawning is full of delicate dances with ghosts; not just the departed, but the never-were, the should-never-have-beens. Mary Ford Neal sketches these moments, of grace and sometimes redemption, with elegance and warmth, reminding us that magic can be found in unlikely places: a pavement, a coffee cup, a glance.” Rishi Dastidar

“The poems in Dawning ‘boil here quietly’; with a sure use of form, they channel undercurrents of unease with a deft touch of craft and an intelligent use of white space. Meetings, departures, journeys to and from, the most brutal of truths find their home in the everyday and the strange. This is a significant debut.” Claire Dyer

“Intriguingly, this collection starts and ends with the question I told the world I didn’t love you. Why? We’re drawn in to explore the intensity and often contradictory complexities of desire, intimacy, and love. Neal commands an impressive range of poetic forms, deftly capturing passion and regret with a wry touch.” Jay Whittaker

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My husband is losing his shit

Previously published in Dodging the Rain

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The Sea-Wife

I tried to marry a wave.

He came so softly, twice a day, bringing me gifts,
seaglass and songs,
and his devotion to me was a wonder of the world.
And over time, through painstaking erosion,
he gently shaped my heart into a small boat.

I found a ring left lying on the sand,
and knew he meant to marry me.
But next time, he came in as weak as water,
towed by an emaciated moon,
and somehow his devotion was lethargic,
and lacked the power to lift my boat and take it.

I tried to put my arms around him, vainly,
and as he washed away I tasted saltwater;
he must have wept at being made to leave me.
And he whispered, and I caught it on the breeze,
that I should place the ring on my own finger,
and take great care to keep my heart in boat-form.

And he is out there now, swirling and crashing,
his crest festooned with broken bits of boats;
then calming, gently finding foreign beaches
that remind him of the beach where he once found me.
I know how it must pain him not to find me now,

and I sit here,
sea-wife for fifteen years.

Previously published in Janus Literary

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Street magic

I don’t believe in magic. But something
hovers along these streets, something
like dust not settling hangs just above
the slippery cobbles, and it’s more than
the messy flash of reflected streetlight
and it’s more than the colourful spill from some
long gone car, lying now in the gutter
as though someone had pierced a rainbow
and let it fall sighing down to die here
in the dark, by a drain, with the swollen fag-ends
and the dog urine and the spit of the loud lads.
This is something else – our shoes splash through it
whatever it is, and I swear it makes our stepping lighter.
My feet might fly, and any second I might be gone
unless I grab your arm to stop myself,
which I never would.

Previously published in Dodging The Rain

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Mary Ford Neal is a writer and academic from the West of Scotland, where she still lives and works, teaching and researching Law and Medical Ethics. Her poetry is widely published, and has been Pushcart nominated. Dawning is her debut collection.

Dawning is available to purchase from the Indigo Dreams Publishing website

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