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Aqua Alta<\/strong><\/p>\n It started as often before: <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Edmund Prestwich<\/span><\/b> lives in Manchester. He has published two collections, Through the Window<\/i> and Their Mountain Mother<\/i>. You can link to his website and blog at http:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/<\/a> and his Amazon page at https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/ Aqua Alta It started as often before: water, creeping through doors, pushed in by wind and tide, flooded the lower floors. Venetians, grimly stoic, waded to work as dawn broke cold and yellow; waded through ruined books, shoes and baby clothes, or queued in bakeries and bars while water rose to their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[137,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17914"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18253,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17914\/revisions\/18253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwater, creeping through doors,
\npushed in by wind and tide,
\nflooded the lower floors.
\nVenetians, grimly stoic,
\nwaded to work as dawn
\nbroke cold and yellow; waded
\nthrough ruined books, shoes
\nand baby clothes, or queued
\nin bakeries and bars
\nwhile water rose to their knees.
\nFour Russians in trunks and bikinis
\ngrinned mockingly for the cameras
\nround a table by St Mark\u2019s,
\ntill, as the water rose
\ntheir bodies disappeared \u2013
\nleft jerking heads, cold hands
\nclinging to the table
\nand frozen manic grins.
\nTheir legs kicked in frenzy,
\npale blurs in the green murk,
\nwhile silently all round
\nthe sea hordes muscled in,
\nbream and bass and squid,
\nred mullet, flickering eel,
\ngamberetti, spider crabs,
\nand mercury-poisoned razor clams
\nborne in on the drifting sand.<\/p>\n