Poseidon at the Spill
as the tanker tore
its throat against the
shallow spine, as
the village unravelled
when the sea took fire;
in a hi-vis flower
of diesel light,
he rose.
finding his tongue
tang-stained with oil
he yanked his ankle-chain
to its leashpoint,
cursed this fresh hobby,
held his palm alive
with ramification, above
the pepperdashed sandbank.
unmighty and
detergent-eyed he
watched their wings fail
into swooplessness
and so moving bird to bird,
he spoke his
new momentum
backwards
into blackened eyes.
Andrew Tucker Leavis has written for the Radio Times, Litro and Under the Radar. He was writer-in-residence at Melbourne UNESCO City of Literature in 2024, and is now the editor in chief of the New Nottingham Journal.