Cowrie
by and published in Edition Six of Pomegranate
“This is the place your grand-
father fished.” For girls
walking home from Butlins; and
for excuses when the old girl
tried to raise hell.
You’d remember that curl
of cowrie, because it smelt
quite unlike sea; upended,
a salt-white Protestant hall
for fishspawn. I found it again
this morning, at the place
where my grandfather sat, intent:
the same palm-lines tracing
an identical, unbroken surface.
If I still had the art of prayer,
I’d have wished myself as
a crack in our cowrie,
which lasted, and not the ocean,
shattering on the horn of the cliffs.
A new wave flowers, and strikes again.
Jonathan Ware
Jon Ware is a creative writing undergraduate at the University of Warwick. His poetry has been previously published in nthposition, Shadow Train and Equinox. He’s recently been nominated for the Guardian Student Media Awards as critic of the year for his reviews of contemporary literature