Deckchair Cartographers
We charted the sable graveyard like it depended
on our lives, splayed horizontal as split sacks,
left eyes like cornucopia shells rolled by wine –
trading each foreign nictate with a distant black.
Like breath on a neat blade we could not hear
or feel but merely see it, a spume pressing
like a love stung heart – a mess speckled
yet somehow simultaneously collected.
Three hours. The fingertips were spinnaker
and telescope and compass. Our heads sailed,
knowing the map couldn’t care less to what
was jotted down, though it not once telling us so.
Sam Kolinski began writing in Glasgow. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, most recently The Cadaverine, Glasgow Review of Books, The Glad Rag and Ink, Sweat and Tears. He was recently shortlisted for the Jane Martin Poetry Prize (2014) and is currently developing his debut pamphlet. (Website : kolinskisam.wix.com/poems) | Twitter @kolinskisam