
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.