Seasick
Inland in August she makes the spray on her carbonated drink
a substitute for the ocean and for shingle she has her bare feet
rake gravel in a flower barrel at the Ten Bells while her man
sweaty with spirits wrings out sobs like a seagull picking over tins.
In the dark net of the cellular blanket she plugs her ears with wax
and hears her body make the same sound as the serrated shell.
Nightly she sees him throw silver fish over the choppy floorboards
gripping the bedstead for balance and crying for fresh water.
For the other thing, she has her own arms to wrap her round,
and her voice speaks of the climate like a bronze seaweed
streamer. The close air presses in on her, deadlocked in brick.
but she recognises the taste when it comes: salt packing her mouth.
a substitute for the ocean and for shingle she has her bare feet
rake gravel in a flower barrel at the Ten Bells while her man
sweaty with spirits wrings out sobs like a seagull picking over tins.
In the dark net of the cellular blanket she plugs her ears with wax
and hears her body make the same sound as the serrated shell.
Nightly she sees him throw silver fish over the choppy floorboards
gripping the bedstead for balance and crying for fresh water.
For the other thing, she has her own arms to wrap her round,
and her voice speaks of the climate like a bronze seaweed
streamer. The close air presses in on her, deadlocked in brick.
but she recognises the taste when it comes: salt packing her mouth.
Catherine Ormell lives in West London and has had poems in various magazines.
Etching by Marsha Levin
Page(s) 60
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