Jackie Taylor lives and works in Cornwall. She is currently studying for an MLitt in Creative Writing at Glasgow University. Her work has appeared in various anthologies and journals, and her short story collection, Strange Waters, was published by Arachne Press in July 2021.

 

I bought the longboard from the blonde

with surfed out eyes and scrubby edges

and wrists of multi-coloured friendship

 

he promised it would float me over

any difficulties I might encounter

from slight swell to full-on Storm Force 10

 

he promised I would float straight over

trifling sea-bed inconsistencies,

unmapped deep sea trenches and the like

 

the sort of things that might come up to meet me,

take me unawares, stop me in my care-free

it’ll be a breeze, he said, with a jellyfish grin.

 

It was all too easy, too West Coast

too easy come and easier go,

and so many plaits around his wrists

 

hanging too long, faded, fraying

and never any mention of the grit in the oyster.

Its absence niggled. It was all about the pearl.

 

I tongue-twisted sea-shells from the sea shore

ignoring their tales of reef-break havens

from Orkney to Hawaii to the moon and back.

 

I glued on conch, clam and mussel,

the board becoming a thing of substance

with all the satisfactory weight of rock –

there are so many ways to navigate.