The Isis Poetry Competition HT21 Shortlist

Dad brought me fishing

took hold of a herring

broken on stones

we passed

no one but a boat

one hundred metres off

a cuttlefish

swam spectre-like

You know what they eat

the sea he said

fascinated

I fell

in the vision

I was blue scarlet

Dad carried me on

his father’s back

I remember him breathing

that gap in the reef ∎

 

Words by Meesha Williams. Art by Nat Cheung.