Lynne Elson
The Secret
The Suffolk coast was crumbling like cheese,
locked in shingle, its warm melt shorn
by cold winds. We’d been to Minsmere
where avocets with meccano legs
were stitching the shine with long beaks;
then to Dunwich with its draughty tea-room,
white cups and the scrape of hard chairs.
‘There used to be houses out there’, Dad said,
pointing. We gazed at the water’s
luminous skin; it gave nothing away.
When the rain came down, we beat
a retreat on the climbing road, passing
red letters: BEWARE OF ADDERS IN THE WOODS.
Thoughts flashed past of a hidden S,
black lightning, a body of sand.
Inland, I imagine my juvenile self
still treading on the flinted strand
between thirsting water, venomous land,
and the secret is not theirs but hers:
her thin resilience, salted with laughter.
Page(s) 14
magazine list
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- Lamport Court
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- Pen Pusher Magazine
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
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- Shearsman
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- Staple
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- Thumbscrew
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- Weyfarers
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- Yellow Crane, The