The sea roses glob up on the foot of the slab And the driftwood about us has piled in irregular rhythms Remains of not so ancient quarrels are buried on dirty sighs We poured ourselves in measures—rationing the twists But still when we lay down it felt like climbing and we couldn’t breath Our house confronts the sea—once it was a comfort to battle it together Still the salt air is a constant foe—sand silts up each opening So I prize myself out with care—without you Now knowing what things seem I embed in the crumbling cliffs An ammonite curled in on myself—elemental Waiting to be hacked out of the milky slice And weighed in hands so others can feel the gravity of the thing They will hang me on a shelf and write out a label or a warning She never fought back but her substance made others wild— When I was young I asked my mother why she put up with my father’s drinking She looked stunned—she never knew she had a choice I still think about this all the time
Adele Evershed writes poetry and prose in between teaching and training her family to take the items on the bottom step upstairs when they pass. Her poetry has been or will be published in a number of anthologies- Mingled Voices 5 from Proverse Press, Winter 2020 by Other Worldly Women Press, Southwest Poetry Review 2020 and Whitman Collaborative Project from Local Gems Press. On line her poetry and flash prose can be found in, Three Drops from a Cauldron, The Fib Review, Reflex Fiction, Flash Fiction North and Every Day Fiction among other places.
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