Flotsam
They found her faux-leather handbag first
with the normal tidal stuff, shore-froth, bits
of broken shells, casings of ragworms, pincers.
It didn’t contain the tools of her trade:
poison perfume, clot-red lippy, war-paint,
a Stanley-knife, French-ticklers, a skint wallet
with maxed-out plastics, dog-eared photos.
Instead it held dead crabs and kelp slime,
a stink of salt and an empty mermaid’s purse.
The rusty buoy’s distant garnet bulb
was like a tabernacle on the rough sea.
A shrill swarm of herring gulls out in the bay.
Somewhere, with lungs full of brine, wet clothes
rippling like fins she floated, eyes amphibious.
The tide was turning, they needed the boat.
Richie McCaffery
This poem won an Edwin Morgan Travel Bursary which was awarded by the Arts Trust of Scotland
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