Coquet
For brief hours, between rockpools, sandways
open up. Midday, low tide, her feet splash though
clouds floating in brine on beached ground
that belongs metres below the waves.
Her eyes, caught by the sideways flit of a black shag,
settle on Coquet’s outcrop, its bleached lighthouse erect
and almost touchable today. She mulls on crossing over-sea,
the islet seems so near. To swim or wade. Yet the true question
is she strong enough or will she drown? Moments pass fast
In her mind she plunges deep – feet rooted she’s surprised
to find she’s stuck, manacled by stinking bladderwrack
on singing, sinking sands, with empty razor shells,
barnacled, rocky stones and decimated crabs.
He’d always press.
Say, ‘Go’, when she’d hold back.
Nearby, sea-coal dust fans in delicate arrays,
pointillist gestures of encouragement.
She falters as the tide turns
placing temptation
out of reach.
m y – s e l f
m y – s e l f splinters in sunlight
scatters amongst leaves in breezes
is washed down drains in autumn storms
m y – s e l f withers under scrutiny of headlights
dances and dreams with grey ghosts at break of dawn
rears up affronted when shivered by scorn
m y – s e l f is nothing in pretence of everything
is proven in kindness corrupted by altruism
bound by imagined concepts stark lines on my aging face
m y – s e l f was once young fair yet unaware
is all the assumptions made by me and others
reactive and proactive compliant and defiant
m y – s e l f kaleidoscopes into dizziness when
stunned I try to contemplate my darkened navel
scarred by surgery three births and mid-life fires
m y – s e l f merges into tribal waters forebears
join descendants and my myriad selves
as yet unborn circulate still stardust in Kali’s eyes
at the end of m y – s e l f by my woodland grave,
my tribe gathers to see m y – s e l f splinter in sunlight
bed down in mossy earth settle self-less into loamy soil
Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon writes short stories and poetry. She’s been published on-line and in print. She is a Forward and Pushcart Prize nominee (2019), and she believes everyone’s voices count.