Big ship
Mountain at the end of our street was
me dad’s: he welded her,
came home sweating metal.
We played in her shadow:
so smooth her cliffs,
so curvy, we couldn’t climb.
Hour by hour of our days she grew,
took shape. The staithes
held her delicate with eiffel-finery.
Evenings just before dark
we’d go down to the river,
stare at the bend where open sea began,
where gulls’ wings took fire
as the sun slipped over:
we’d not notice then,
thinking she was ours for ever,
not knowing yet
how the gap would throb
like a bloody gum
how the future would slide
so quietly away on the outgoing tide.
Pippa Little is a literacy worker in Newcastle upon
Tyne and is widely published in magazines and
anthologies. She was a poetry editor of Writing
Women and has a PhD in contemporary women’s
poetry.
Tyne and is widely published in magazines and
anthologies. She was a poetry editor of Writing
Women and has a PhD in contemporary women’s
poetry.
Page(s) 7
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The