Member Poem

Seagulls and fishermen

eye me. The surfers are tiny

dust specks on a shifting silver screen

: Sun-flecked and reckless

I have seen the birds

tug chicken-bones between them

I have smelt the kelp

Fresh flesh rot

and musk perfume

Tangled, trying

I have felt

the glittering pinpricks of sea lice

: Shipwrecked and restless

(The first rule of flying is remembering

there is nothing beneath but empty air -

the first rule of surfing,

the sea cannot love or care)

Shoreside, the tide

ripples like a rumour,

under feet and over toes

I toss a pebble prayer

to whatever gods or sharks

(but men are gods and gods are sharks

and sharks just frightened fish with fangs

in a sandpaper shell)

I have tasted

salt-spiced joy, regret’s fetid tang

And somehow

It means more now

That shallow water drowns just as well

First appeared in Poetry Nights on Palmer, 2016