We holidayed in Norfolk, walked
on seaside hills, my mum, gran, aunt and I.
We sat in a café, watched the tide
get high upon the shore.
My sandals were clustered with wet sand
from the beach where I looked out to the waves
and asked are they swans mummy? The peaks,
the crashes of water were white,
they dot dot dashed in little white
windswept plumes upon the sea.
The white seagulls swooped to catch
chips from the floor and sat on the seawall
squawking – ska ska ska – before flapping back to the sky
to shit on the man outside in a baseball cap, eating
a sausage butty on white bread. That seagull’s
wings looked like a feathery white boomerang
blending with the white overcast day, the greying horizon,
the grey sea, the white waves.
The wind was harsh and stung
my face – my father striking me.
The sea shhhhouted and shhhhushed
at the sea wall, they met and collided
and crashed. Everything moved
but the floor, the sea wall. The concrete
was sad and felt so large
next to the hills, the long-walk peaks
that were bent-backs when I looked up into the sky.
I ate nice hash browns in the café.
I sipped milky tea from my kiddy cup.
I showed mum the scar on my finger,
she kissed it better.
by a.w. vann 