© Tina Cole

Attempt at Communication

Do you remember when we walked
to the end of the pier, where rotten planks
were being replaced by new, the ocean splayed
in a slick taut line, one fine grey levering
a thousand subtler shades? The sea lung sighed,
sucked back its breath and I thought of gaps in time,
the lapse of seconds when each near cresting wave
scents change. I thought about the days we never
spoke of fear, now here I am in this locked down time,
silence diving in fast and sleek, like dolphins
at play who know the dangers of the deep. Too late
for us to just hold hands. I am sorry if you find this
soppy, this note has not come out as planned.

Tina Cole, Write Where We Are Now project- Manchester Writing School website, April 2020.

© Tina Cole

The Woman Married to a Fish

Last Summer I finally caught him, dragged
from the lethargy of seabed silence, through a lap slap
slippery tide to my hubble-bubble world.

Home in the small kitchen, hardly elbow room
for the cat let alone this bloated monster
who lolled in the bath all day, using up the Radox.

He delighted in the dark liquefaction
of January storms, took up residence in the garden pond
began flip dialogues with louche frogs.

Told me he preferred scales to sex, installed a mermaid
called Rita, who hummed gauzy songs and combed
out her phosphorescence onto my living room carpet.

By Christmas my charity was wearing thin, I threatened
the hook and line but he was cavalier. Some things
are just not obvious at first. The truth is bald and cold

and stinks like rotten fish. No time for tears. I wrapped
her hair around her throat in a twisted mess of nooses,
invited Mr Cram the taxidermist. We had a whale of a time.

Tina Cole

© Tina Cole

Siberian Sunday

Come inside, place your palm like a quiet
vow on the blessing of the nearest wall where
the torn join of the pattern is familiar.

Ease off wellingtons while the bare arms
of trees shed Winter blossom, carelessly casting
off their lean coldness in sheets of flickering snow,

they cannot wait to let it go, watch it dissipate
across blank fields where small birds
hop their criss-cross codes, soon erased

by softly shifting loads. Hinges sing and sigh,
demented wind chimes clatter, as we fling
off corkscrewed hats, regard ourselves

in glass that’s spiked and frozen, return
at last to a room full of scent, the almost
spent bloom of Hyacinth.

Tina Cole, Creative Countryside Magazine, Issue 8, Winter 2019.