Box Factory

The Poem of the Month for May 2026, selected by 2026 Anthology editors Elizabeth Salna and Erica Jolly, is Fig by Murray Alfredson. The commended poems are Double Helix by Val Braendler, 18 Ways to Look at a Date by Judy Dally, blur by Rory Harris, and The Space Between by Colleen Lamshed.

---

Fig
Murray Alfredson

Now take the fig. Who ever knows its sweetness
flowered a thousand fold it seems, and fruited
within a stubby open stem, whoever
knows its tiny sting from milky sap
on lips and tongue, might also know that tree
has little need of core or heartwood, its stems
and branches hollow, laddered, filled with pith,
its fruit with nothing but an airy centre.… Click for more

The Poems of the Month for April 2026, selected by 2026 Anthology editors Elizabeth Salna and Erica Jolly, are flattop by Ben Adams and Modern Slant on an Old Story by Veronica Cookson. The commended poems are Swallowtail Butterfly by Kylie Dinning, Broken News by Billy-Jack Johnson, Evelyn, Little Evelyn by Geoff Johnson and Travelling North by Rob McKinnon.

---

flattop
Ben Adams

the instinct of fire is
conflagration

filling space like a man who won’t stop talking
about not getting caught in groupthink
how he doesn’t see empathy as a virtue
and that he formulated these ideas
after reading Orwell, Huxley, Peterson
and Plato
speaking to people
and dating a woman
whose worldview was based on emotions

he hates cops
for all the wrong reasons

considers multiculturalism impossible
from a logical standpoint
and says educated white people think BBQs and backyard cricket
are analogous with white supremacy
slight hyperbole, he admits
but not far from the mark

he is an exothermic process
becoming everything
replacing air with heat, the still surface
of a flattop grill or timber frame
a hanging tent flap, or skin
with crackling singe and melt

he’s forgotten to flip the snags again

the way embers smoulder
kindling catches love like a spark
follows algorithmic oxygen
to inhale it like hate, like something
his body wants
the world is a many-faced god

and he’s forgotten to check the steaks
as we stand away in the smokers’ corner
discussing the sociology of flame

as weapon of war, the worst way to die
he talks about diesel engines
speeding fines and the family court
religion as culture
and ritual, a warm hearth
he remembers

I mention the witches they burned

tell him that
combustion doesn’t care
what it consumes

and violence only becomes visible
at the ignition point

---

Modern Slant on an Old Story
Veronica Cookson

The original
Antonio, Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 1

‘In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.… Click for more