Incantation

One day I shall lay out my life like a map
and send pigeons out to get me there.
I’ll thread myself through the claws of a wish,
and a Kelpie skull with a narwhal hair.

So tie my tongue to a skua’s scales
in a jar of pickled herring,
some black-slug has dulled my mind,
and the land has crabbed my bearing.

When the smell of brine has burst my ears,
the conch will hear the sea in me,
the jaw of a whale shall oar me there
or fling these fists in a samphire sea.

David Seddon


If you have any thoughts about this poem, David Seddon  would like to hear them.