The sea happens to me today
not because I’m the woman in the bakers
brusque turned rude
or the peaches still hard in the bowl
skin-touched with mould
I need a reassemble immersion
my flamingo of balance is stuck
on a slope of rough ground
I drive to the lighthouse
where the crosshatch of push
and pull tides argue the way
a woman is shredding a tissue
her eye on a child in the waves
I undress swim close yet far
a mingle of grey over my head
an hour of rain curtaining in
a shift see-saws my body of waters
the woman offers a towel to her loved one
she sinks back into my skin
Sandra Noel is a Jersey born poet with a passion for the sea. Her poems appear in various UK publications. Sandra’s debut collection Into The Under was published in 2024 by Yaffle.