The Bell Tower by Pamela Crowe

The Bell Tower is a collection of poems by Pamela Crowe. Cover by Amy Louise Evans.

Sea drags me out. No, not sea, you.

Voluble force back and forth;

you don’t even know

you’re doing it.

 

Each time, arms stretched,

legs coathangered, I stick man

to the shore,

land gasping, lungs to fill;

I stand still looking back,

so inland, more inland this time.

You cannot get me now.

 

Drying, that takes weeks.

Wind ribbons to my face

and lifts my greening hair; on safe skin a dress

that buffers, tip-taps my tapered frame. I Flag.

 

It’s warm though

and the breeze is fine by me, this sexless wind

that doesn’t want me – just strides out my seaborne stare

and carols round like flossing saline

till you come in once more.