No man is an island but some women are. One, at least— the sea rushed in years ago and flooded everything I’d known. Now only my head is above water, every seventh wave almost drowns me and there is nothing, nothing to be seen from here but sky and ocean, ocean and sky— on the greyest days they could be the same.
All posts by anna maughan
Family Tree
Lightning tree, older than memory, stood before we crawled, sheltered the mothers and fathers before. But wood is never stronger than fire: so many strikes left you hollow. Nothing makes a nest here or sings from your branches, too afraid of the ashes at your heart. Lightning tree, there is strength in your roots. Sleep out another winter, when the thaw comes maybe you will bud again.
Evening Poem
(for Adrian Henri) ‘I’m not volatile!’ she exploded.
Dead Man’s Hat
(for the Boscastle Busker) He sings like it’s the most natural thing, raises a glass and raises his voice from some kind of magic within. All the chatter dies away, the pub is silent when he sings, until the chorus when they all join in. He’s most himself when he sings— in a dead man’s hat that came to him full of love and loss, worn to bring memories to life, only when he sings.
Feather-Light
I have been weighed down for so long, stones tied to my feet, I have been sinking. still I dream of everything that I will be, when at last I’m feather-light and free. I have been thinking that I shall be an exaltation: a thousand larks filling the sky with perfect wings, elated, alive.
Little Things
Hooks
anxiety, a tremor underneath my skin, a background hiss like static, like unearthed electricity. it waits, with its little barbed hooks, ready to latch on to the slightest disturbance and surround it, making it bigger, louder, more insistent and frightening and I don’t know how to stop it. it prickles and shivers and makes my hands shake and my legs twitch to a rhythm I can’t hear. I don’t know how to simply exist– that’s all I want, just to be. to feel at peace. still and quiet, not humming and whirring with untapped energy that goes nowhere and does nothing but make me afraid to be alive.
The Memory
once upon a time, a memory was formed.
the whole family was there to see and hear, smell and feel it.
each of them knew that it was something they would never forget,
having seen it so sharply right there in front of them.
a bed, at sea
the past floods in I close my eyes and sink, dissolving into everywhere, drowning in time and time again. predators circle, dead-eyed and inevitable. I try to ride their waves, but I am ridden, breached, defenceless. a breaker of a man, and another – I go under. I splutter and blink tongue in my throat I choke, heaving on saltwater. I cry and try to fight, this drowning bird’s forgotten flight and I’m not when I thought I was. the shiver has swum, the tide subsided, and he says just get over it. he says the past is behind me, he did not come here to watch me drown, or to see me swim with sharks. but the low tide laps at my feet and out there they are still circling.
we are cities
we are cities made from debris. we were broken and we crumbled, we shattered and we fell. we found ourselves in heaps and piles— glass fragments, dust and stone. we searched for solid ground where we’d be safe to stay and began the work of all our lifetimes. hands bloodied, backs bent and aching— we would not remain razed, we would become again. now, we are stronger for rebuilding, and proud that we rose from the rubble to make ourselves anew.