Seaglass, Flint and Jasper
Never doing things by half, or in order,
seaglass for the colour of her eyes, flint
for the man who builds furniture to fit her poetry,
they ran to catch the last bit of sunlight at low tide.
She shouted look, her dappled hands pointed at the seashells,
he traced the scar on her chest. Her healed flesh a rose-red cliff
in Abersoch. Blonde seaweed-curls on her forehead.
Who kept the sun in her view?
Stood under that orange doorframe, her little one:
a half-hidden moon, whose crescent thumb
pressed the earth’s margin
and sculpted a rope
to give her the sun
for the fourth stone. For a moment, at Barmouth,
when low tides soaked a floral sky, her ring
shone with the depth of a star.
And if you’re close enough, you can still see it.
Kayleigh Jayshree is a poet and short story writer. She was IS&T’s July 2021 Pick of the Month and her poem was commended in the Young Poets Network ‘When a Friend Calls’ challenge. Kayleigh was a Member of the Roundhouse Collective, mentored by Cecilia Knapp and a 2021-2022 Apples & Snakes Writing Room Alumni taught by Dfiza Benson. She is a member of The Writing Squad and joined in 2020. Her poems have been published in The Cardiff Review, Butcher’s Dog, and Isele Magazine. Her poem ‘Anniversary-Dream’ was one of the three winning poems in the Poetry Society’s 2024 Love Poetry Collage Challenge.
She is a former IS&T editing intern.
Ianthe Warlow filmmaker Instagram @ianthe.w