Waterlogged - Lucy Atkinson

I wash the memory from my hands,

Beloved sunrise. Saltwater against my lips.

Palms carved by the cliffside, every jagged rock.

For days I have walked these same shores,

wet sand sifting through my toes

Like an old oil painting.

All rain and hair

in my sanguine summer coat.

I remember your footprints on the sand dunes

when we were barely old enough to write our names,

the thicket of grass we would picnic on

in the few dry summer days.

It didn’t feel remarkable then,

like any old and twisted root

we grew intertwined.

It’s not the dry days that I’ll miss but

Walking home in our anoraks,

the sound of water from both sides.

A song of sea and rain.

Bio:

Lucy Atkinson is a poet and playwright from the North East of England, currently studying a MA in creative writing at Durham University. She has published poetry in a number of magazines online and in print such as Acumen, Agenda and Crossways. Her debut play 'As It Was' was recently published by lazy bee scripts.