Lynne Wycherley
Mother and daughter by the North Sea
I watch you walk through your grief,
ease from the husk of your inland house
into salt light. We hear the sea’s lisp,
a whisper of ebb on the out-breath
and watch a crab shake castanets
and run its red world sideways.
The sands are blue with reflected sky
by cliffs as soft as creamed almonds.
Shell of your shell, I feel the pull
of bright water. Gems roll at our feet,
capsules of fire in the ash of our hands.
Cornelian, amber, chalcedony,
fragments from Scotland and Norway,
atoms of – my love for you
is littoral: I want to net each stone
for your house, each moment
burnished by the sea, as you tread
the beach in your old brown shoes
and the Norfolk sky breathes round you,
the sun holding its celandine to your face.
ease from the husk of your inland house
into salt light. We hear the sea’s lisp,
a whisper of ebb on the out-breath
and watch a crab shake castanets
and run its red world sideways.
The sands are blue with reflected sky
by cliffs as soft as creamed almonds.
Shell of your shell, I feel the pull
of bright water. Gems roll at our feet,
capsules of fire in the ash of our hands.
Cornelian, amber, chalcedony,
fragments from Scotland and Norway,
atoms of – my love for you
is littoral: I want to net each stone
for your house, each moment
burnished by the sea, as you tread
the beach in your old brown shoes
and the Norfolk sky breathes round you,
the sun holding its celandine to your face.
Page(s) 20
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- Features
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- 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