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Cow parsley bank .jpg

sunny side up 
A poem by Arlette K Manasseh

into the mud to pick samphire certainly she was standing in it          almost sinking

eating salted green     wearing those white soft brogues      sinking

at the level of the crunch the sea breeze blowing in              flint village      spire in the distance

together in the lee      their hands     foregrounding a sloping well-fertilised                       memory

of a field          a cabbage family         to be crushed               his red gansey was worn in May

                                      tasting the sea in his mouth, he was spitting out grains of grit

flat hot yellow                                       sister, death is not always a portrait

the only way to describe our pain is in seagulls        

when they ask you what kind of bed was it                say       life is a very short book                                        say brass and feathers            say we had soft-boiled eggs on toast            

Arlette K Manasseh first worked as a director in cross-disciplinary theatre. She started writing in 2017 after moving back to West Lochaber from London.

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