The Isis Poetry Competition HT21 Shortlist

We’re at the rock pools again. 

 

You’re bothering anemones

putting your hand to your mouth

to taste the salt

 

Like licking the shiny side

of a crisp packet

 

We talk

about the old sea

 

The sea from before 

 

and how it used
to keep its distance

 

I have never been so afraid

of my body breaking

 

Now

you hold out soft white stones, 

millions of other, smaller bodies 

Compressed 

 

Coccoliths, I say

You lisp it back to me, 

labouring over the t, 

the h 

 

Chalk dust paints
your hands translucent

Thick eyelashes,
layered 

Like rows of shark’s teeth 

And I think
of the bodies recycling,
calcium cuttlefish bones
being pecked apart by budgerigars ∎

 

Words by L Hankins. Art by Nat Cheung.