After the Ban

In 2008, After the Ban won first prize at the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition.


Perhaps
if they were
cleaned
they
would appeal
to a collector,
these vessels,
slim
as Cycladic
dolls,
tar-spangled,
vaguely familiar,
some a little more
pneumatic,
all precious
because
we have
no plastic.

A spring tide,       pigged on wrack,     has strewed     its picnic,
hard-sucked            orange bleach flasks,  peppermint cream-cleaners,               abraded lemon        grime-removers,                         red     bitten
teats of sports drinks,         suntan lotions,                 weather beaten            toilet ducks                                                                                                          along the beach.

We’d need
the old
capacious
baskets
folk called creels,
sturdy and curved
as clamshells
to gather
in the spill.
But we have only
swimming bags
we’ve woven from
flag iris leaves.
And then we see
the whale.


Original PDF version, © Copyright Kate Miller 2008-2013, All rights reserved