Small light
Small light
It is beyond dusk,
the fishing boats dot the dark with light,
the waning moon in hidden by long awaited rain clouds
percolating.
I am sniffing my way through up the woodland path
home,
fully feral after days of sea
and tangled
matted hair.
Gate closed,
step one,
then two,
and there it … Read more
Mermaids
Mermaids
From the waves I see them,
Three women, engrossed in each other’s laughter.
They take a selfie,
Arms wrapping each other closely,
Laughing
Heads flung back
Hearts open.
I emerge to the shingle
And cover myself in my pink towel tent
And as I do
they strip,
flinging clothes into a pile
layer after … Read more
Today I swam with a shoal of fish
Today I swam with a shoal of fish
along an English shore.
I paid no attention to the fishermen in their tiny tents
escaping who knows what
or maybe just content to gaze out to sea.
I arrived at dawn across the tiny, glistening circles of crunching stone
and sighed sadly to see the silver… Read more
How I let the pandemic change me – work
My mum studied with the Open University when I was a child. I remember her being moved by the poems of Heaney and Ted Hughes. She read us the poems and who knows whether it was her passion that led me to my literature degree. She didn’t finish hers, the demands of single parenting in … Read more
How I let the pandemic change me – remember
I don’t know if any of you remember the pandemic?
I don’t mean the fact that it happened,
but how life changed
how you felt when the cars stopped,
when the birds could be heard,
when the air quality improved
when we missed loved ones
and hugs
and smile.
That visceral feeling of what it … Read more
Why I have let my hair go white
My dad hates it. He says that me having white hair makes him feel old. I don’t point out that he is old.
Men won’t find it attractive, friends warn,
So why have I let my hair go white?
Because I figure that if people/men don’t like it, then they are not for me,
because … Read more