dribbles ahead of whipped waves, on beaches
slashed by incoming tides. Plump, clockwork
waders, they totter, drunk on bootleg moonshine.
Seagulls, windbags on wings, screech
waken ghosts of sailors, marooned then lost
on rocks nearby. Their cries shatter my nerves
like cracked eggshells. My vigil’s long,
this January night shift. My is penance due
for lies told here in summer when I swore love
fuelled by cava and cucumber sandwiches.
Last month, betrayed, the one I tired of
sank, full-clothed, in winter storms, and died.
Hollowed Out.
We once flew high, feathered with passion, gusted upwind. You know this, so do I,
whatever’s splintered since.
Today, it’s too late.
We’re sentenced to destruction, guilty
of many offences by omission or commission.
But do not say I did not love you.
You were, we were,
everything, for a moment’s moment.
That long instant in real time, echoes
entirely empty, now. Goodbye.
Ceinwen lives near Newcastle upon Tyne, UK and writes short stories and poetry. She is widely published in online magazines and in print anthologies. Her first chapbook was published in July 2019: 'Cerddi Bach' [Little Poems], Hedgehog Press. Her first pamphlet is due to be published in 2021. She is a Pushcart Prize (2019 & 2020) and Forward Prize (2019) nominee and holds an MA in Creative Writing from Newcastle University, UK (2017). She believes everyone’s voice counts.
