NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

Or the anthology of the finalists in the Second Cinnamon Press poetry collection competition. Or, in Jan Fortune-Wood's introduction,

'an anthology of poems that speak — not didactically, not always obviously, but with conviction and depth'.

	The best sin-eaters come from the borders.
	It's no coincidence. Border people eat territory
	from both sides, alter lines on maps, plough
	the soul for nutritious stuff as if it were bread 
	or salt or beer. Passing over is coinage in life
	as well as death, they say. Nation-states
	mean less to them than what lies in-between.

	Each night she poured herself to sleep,
	slithered over the cool crystal lips
	of a stately beaker, sank
	in slow bliss
	down the steep sides,
	caressing each 
	perfect glacier
	as she passed,
	tonguing the lemon,
	nesting her head
	at last on the spongy rind...

Ruth Leader's THE BOOK

	Even today there are scraps,
	there are moments
	to get back
	to where the peacock lay,
	just looking up at me,
	under a sun redder
	that any that has been seen before.

	...And walking from the care, the now-familiar bird
	descends to almost tree top height,

	as if its string were caught in the branches,
	the notched tail and white underside
	field guide-perfect, the chestnut gloss
	of its breast still the last thing I expect.
	It hangs, wings a minuscule serif M. Maybe.