Poem: Seashells
This week’s Poet’s Corner sees Kim Waters revisit precious memories of an afternoon by the sea with her father.
Seashells
a father’s promise
All afternoon my father and I
searched in rock pools for shells,
the reflection of our faces bloated
on the surface, two pairs of hands
frozen white to the wrist.
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Sea-sprayed and salt-dry, we stayed
as gamblers till the sun slipped
beneath the horizon, then walked
back to the car park, a few pocketed
clams fading to matt.
Here in this shop full of shells,
chartered finds, freaks of the sea-bed,
I recall the quiet of his breath,
the stoop of his gaze, asking up faith
in the lapsing daylight.
Kim Waters lives in Melbourne. She has a Master of Arts degree in creative writing from Deakin University. Her poetry has appeared in The Australian and The Shanghai Literary Review, the Monash, Melbourne and Victoria University creative writing journals Verge, Antithesis and Offset, and in the online ones Communion and Tincture.