2 poems by Mary Mulholland

On Pismo Beach

The Pacific rolls in with long shallow waves

over the wide strand where a little boy,

perhaps four, with dark, wind-roughed hair,

gazes at the sea. He wears orange shorts.

Up to his calves in clear water, he reaches

down, lifts a handful to the sky, watches it

slip between fingers and sparkle as it catches

the setting sun. His face lights with laughter

as he bends to do it again, again, and faster.

On the shore, his mother, busy texting, calls

Time to go. The wind steals her words and

the boy continues his waterfalls. His father,

out in deeper water, raises a camera

to still his son's smile, still the water.

Relationship

At first it tasted of honeycomb, lit up the ocean bed

with striations of turquoise and blue, and as the patterns

shifted, it became a David Hockney painting of water

filling a bathtub of starfish that were waiting

for their limbs to regrow. Sometimes I would make out

in the air the cleansing sharpness of cut lemons, but

when you finally left, my heart took on a taste of cinnabar

moths feasting on ragwort. I was cupped hands clutching

at razors, pushing a wheelbarrow of dead lambs

to be collected by the fallen-stock lorry, the knackerman.

________________

Mary Mulholland’s poems are widely published, most recently in Stand, Pomegranate-London, forthcoming in Obsessed with Pipework and London Grip. She was recently a finalist in Mslexia, Aesthetica, Fish and Live Canon prizes, 3rd in Write Out Loud, and highly commended in Ware. www.marymulholland.co.uk