Eve Jackson
Expecting to See a Turnstone at Herne Bay
Expecting to stumble across you late one wintry day,
cowered from the caustic cold of North Sea in fading light,
looking every bit the mottled rock: stippled in shell-white,
tar black, slate grey and brown like a slip of kelp.
Expecting the salt wind to blunt my eyes, sting my skin
as the shingle bank spreads my legs
in its slow shifting of waterless trickle downhill;
to catch your feathers stir to cold curls of wind,
head depressed into neck, sharp thorn of bill.
Expecting you to be squat, stoic, unmoving solidness
against tide as seawater rides up, over
each dome of pebble, shingle hissing at its sides.
Numbed. I would wait for you to turn stones,
debris, driftwood. Probe for maggots
amongst the rotting skulls of fish.
Dumbfounded when, one hot day through a choke of BBQ smoke,
dogs romping, children screeching, I spot you promenading
along the top of a beach hut - the one with candy-pink stripes
and purple shutters.
Page(s) 26
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