THE SEA IS RISING
The radio spits
“The world is ending”
and I sulk down the stairs half shame faced,
mostly hungry.
There is a lobster man in the stairwell
that scares me — the door propped ajar
like a constantly crooked finger beckoning
an unknown hither. Perfect for lurking, so
there might as well be a lobster man smoking
in the stairwell that scares me
“Those are bad for you.”
The peach crust of his head cackles, like
a hundred lobster cages prematurely withdrawn, like
the death rattle of empty air rising out of the ocean, and not
at all like the wet gasp of a peach, or the crispness of bread crust.
I have crab for dinner.
Rakyah Assam lives on the Welsh coast, where she’s working on her forthcoming pamphlet LOBSTERGIRL. Her poetry has been commended by the Young Poets Network, and appears in Sylvia magazine.