Why can’t we hear it in your voice?

The sea is a petrel song; you breathe out lead.

I speak faster

spray them with salt

flash a pebbled smile

promise mine is

a mother of pearl.

Why can’t we see it in your face?

Your skin is powdered gypsum.

I pluck my brows to fishhooks

scrape my cheeks ruddy

with synthetic sand

nightly wash the foamy swell

surging to the plughole.

Why don’t you wear it on your back?

Kinsale sports a cape.

I furl myself

in linen, greys and greens,

waive my curls to the wind

to whip into a whirlpool.

Why don’t you swim away?

You’re only treading water.

I traipse the prom

trawl sandy coves for witnesses

skim grey stones

leap forty feet into the surf.

Lynn Harding works as an editor. A member of the Dublin Writers’ Forum, she is working towards her first poetry collection.