kelp

Undertow

my sands are shifting

and the tides

always the same but

look at the minutiae

different every time

so how

do you justify or feel safe

always, it vibrates

buzzing with life or at

mechanical pace

like the train rattles by my place

at night, dark speedthought tangles trace

catch and drag

that undertow when sleep

is lying backwards

underwater and

looking up at the light

nowhere else to hide

and no place to return to

do, do, do, do

ideas massed like kelp piles, stinking high

how do I…

where is, why,

just write.

Mangrove

There is a heart-place

Of mangroves and oyster rocks

Sei Shonagon, Megan Willcox

Soft, quiet hollows of sand, like the scoops of a hip

A headland, like Scotland

All green and black

Where the sea rushes in

And sucks right back

Is a Beowulf Boudicca

Lurking deep

Below slimy kelp

dry salt smell in the heat

I’m afraid

If I go…

It might…

Disappear

Will it flip, mind twisting, turning, running, burning

Tunnel clear

Back here?

A forest path

Gravel and soft brown

Pineneedles where a

Russian scarf

Drapes, disintegrating down

A secret house

Forest sprites,

Where?

Do they come out at night?

Another heart-place for me

On the other side, through the trees

Today’s prompt/challenge was to write a Sei Shonagon-style list of “things.” What things? Well, that’s for you to decide! I remembered a work colleague and how we were so into Sei Shonagon for a while. Then I thought of faraway places in the heart that make it beat faster. The place I often thought of as a refuge/ happy place is where I’m soon going to be moving to. So I’m wondering if I’ll have to invert that once I get there, and imagine myself back in Switzerland instead!

Photo: Claire Doble