Laura Lewis-Waters

            She waits near the edge. Wind catching 

            at her white linen dress. She waits 

            for the fishermen to tread the headland toward her. 

            They’ll come at low tide to the morlog, 

            to the sand and shingle banks for their bass and their sole.  

            And she’ll call to them. Wondering 

            why recognition then fear always flits across their features. 

            They’re too close to the edge again. 

            In the dawn, mist rises off the broads. 

            They don’t hear the cliffs sigh and let go. 

            They don’t hear her moan. 

            She retreats to St Andrew’s. A boy in a red bobble hat 

            weaves himself through tumbling arches 

            around graves on their seaward tilt 

            as though ready to go back.

            Every William –

            every John –

            every sailor –

            every fisherman. 

            The sea was hungry this year. 

            But she’ll not let her Matryoshka home fall. 

            Somewhere a baby cries, 

            or perhaps it is the wind or sea martins. 

            The bobble hat has disappeared. She hopes 

            the church still stands on its return. 

            From the tower she watches 

            the cliff crumble and creep 

            inward. She cries into the night, but nobody comes. 

            They stay away on moonless nights 

            when milk and mist mingle. 

            The babies are hungry.

            Come morning she waits by the edge, 

            her face as flat and featureless as the sea

            while the fishermen’s wives hang their linen out to dry.