Warkworth
The pelt drags me across sand like a drown animal.
I walk miles, eyes fixed on Birling Carrs, a lime light
of seaweed and coal. Birds nesting in cliff face ,
a chorus stuck in a skull. I didn’t know what was here,
buried by tides. I almost missed it – a packet of pills
at nineteen, another at thirty, yet I’m here.
Salt-slapped and grit toothed, sea glass in pocket,
a blister pack of rock pools in my hand. I kneel
to the fur of pondlife, stroke dulse- a strap
bright enough to tie me to this moment alone.
The sun steals a peek of itself laid on the ground.
I sit with it a while. Lichen observing me breathe,
water and shadow a snakeskin boot on my feet.
Snippets of rock pipits popped in my mouth,
I suck an almost song and head back.
Angela Readman is a twice-shortlisted winner of the Costa Short Story Award. Her debut story collection Don’t Try This at Home was published by And Other Stories in 2015. It won The Rubery Book Prize and was shortlisted in the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She also writes poetry, and her collection The Book of Tides was published by Nine Arches in 2016. Her first novel Something Like Breathing will be published next year.