This month's focus includes two poems and one short story that explore ideas around couples and the intensity of relationships -sexual encounters, romance, affairs. Catherine Smith's animated poem considers romance and desire, Henry Shukman writes achingly of an illicit relationship and Charles Lambert's short story is full of the thrill of the hunt. The pieces are also significant for their observations on the largeness of the world we inhabit and our ability to maintain long-distance and international relationships, and remove our romantic interludes to other parts of the world.

The double - meaning contained within the title of Charles Lambert's witty story, 'Entertaining Friends' is typical of the sharp energy which infuses his writing. The narrator is a charismatic and narcissistic personality who enjoys a decadent life - style supported by ex - lovers, friends and potential paramours. Power, sensuality and ardour are at the heart of this ravishing tale.

Henry Shukman's tender poem, 'The Call' is a thoughtful letter of desire to an unattainable loved one some distance away - both physically and emotionally. Using the link between the enigma of technology and the mystique of love, Shukman movingly recounts the pain of torn loyalties, longing and impossible desire.

Catherine Smith's poem, 'The White Sheets' describes sexual appetites that are urgent, intense and vigorous. Flitting from an exotic foreign situation to a gloomy part of London, the undercurrent of desire is prevalent throughout the poem. Gently humorous, wise and warm Smith's poem is a homage to love, romance and passion.

Catherine Smith

Catherine Smith's pamphlet, The New Bride, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize Best First Collection 2001. Her first full collection, The Butcher's Hands, was a PBS recommendation. In 2004 she was voted both one of the top ten women poets to have emerged in the past ten years by Mslexia magazine and one of the top twenty 'Next Generation' poets by the PBS/Arts Council. Her latest collection, Lip, was published by Smith Doorstop in 2007.

Photograph © Derek Adams

Henry Shukman

Henry Shukan's collection In Dr No's Garden was a Book of the Year in The Times and the Guardian, and won the Aldeburgh Poetry Prize in 2003. He has also won the Daily Telegraph Arvon Poetry Prize, and his poems have appeared in the Guardian, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Independent on Sunday, Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books and New Republic. He has worked as a travel writer and a trombonist. Henry also featured previously in New Writing theme Couples.

Charles Lambert

Born in England, Charles Lambert studied English at Cambridge and now lives in Fondi, near Rome. A language teacher and freelance editor for international agencies, his academic translations, including work by Umberto Eco, have been published worldwide. His short story 'The Scent of Cinnamon' published in One Story, has been nominated for a 2007 O. Henry Prize in the US. His debut novel, Little Monsters, will be published by Picador in 2008.

Photograph: Liana Miuccio

Illustration © Maurizio Marmorato