Margaret Eddershaw
Alive, Alive Oh!
Nineteen Chinese cockle pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay, February 5th 2004.
A cold coming they had,
trafficked in a fearful lorry,
boxed like stinking fish, hooked
by the bait of betterment,
gilled in a snakehead net of debt,
forsaking Fujian beaches in hope
of other shoals to fry.
A cold arriving they had,
in Lancashire winter, to trade
their humid, south-east coast for
north-west, windswept shores.
Delivered to a sea of mattresses,
no heat, no taste of Oolong tea
to warm the hearts’ cockles.
A cold living they had,
slave-driven to the daily harvest,
panning icy water for grey and gold
molluscs, curled in pearly beds,
ribbed shells grinding into bags,
Chinese faces bent over, already
ghosts in a bleak expanse of bay.
A cold dying they had,
sky faded in the west, dark wading in
treacherous mud, sea-mouths sucking at
leaden boots. Swirled out, past tractor
tracks to safety, no asylum from the
overtaking tide, ears drowned
in the sweet music of Molly Malone.
Page(s) 23
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