This was published by Cinnamon Press in 2009, in an anthology called In The Telling. I was reminded of it on Wednesday, while Rachel and I walked along the Cardiff Bay barrage, during a two day celebration of our friendship. What a deep and terrifying power lies in the movement of the sea.
The seaside on summer's day,
a chips and vinegar fingers day.
Ice cream for me
and then a hot and sticky
tea in Evans Street with aunts:
strong sugary brew and bread
as thick as stokers' arms.
Driving home, we pass the docks
where dad once worked,
still tar-grimed black
though coal-less now.
A photo-call ...
just him and mum,
embedded in a dockland view.
Wary of the edge, she turns away.
I watch him grab her wrist
and turn her to the void
between the ship and quay.
Stay close, he says,
for if you fall you'll drown
in oily scum; trapped
and crushed by the heaving hull.
Ground like a snail
beneath a man's heel.
They smile for the camera.
Bath. August 2008
Poetry by Sylvia Fairclough 