Featured Poem

Oyster Catcher Dawn

 

We hear an oyster catcher before dawn 

waking us to this present tense allowing 

 

our memory of chiaroscuro hills the first 

rain in weeks streaking dusted glass shapes 

 

of the room remembering themselves 

a luminous watch the outline of a book

 

a glass of water its bubbles of breathable 

air a blister pack of pills the door prised 

 

open the glow of a nightlight entering my 

thoughts that did handstands all night

 

forming and pulling apart as if nothing 

in my body could release them then that 

 

call again spiralling over the village and its 

sleepers disclosing a silver liquidity until 

 

a car engine fires a neighbour goes to work

leaving me with your outline against the 

 

sheets thinking I know you if nothing else so 

without ever speaking reaching for your 

 

shoulder then thinking I never did or could

the rain harder the thoughts never now but 

 

then so recollected daylight reaching us as 

breeze dents curtains the call of that mono-

 

chrome bird repeating from its scarlet bill

its carmine legs trailing spilling day into what 

 

has been or is or will be again the night.

​

Published in ‘The North’, Issue 70, August 2024.