sceptic
by and published in Edition Eight of Pomegranate
St. Christopher abandoned me
at 8pm Greenwich Mean Time;
while I trailed down
the margins of uneven
coast, he tore himself from out
of me, floated gull-ward on an updraft.
I felt it as a lightening,
a soft release of muscle.
Nothing else on the beach,
at 8pm Greenwich Mean Time,
had eyes and so they didn t see him
excommunicate his hand from mine.
The sea urchin, the delicate
statement of starfish in the rock pool,
the apologetic hermits didn’t
see him leave, but he did,
he left me like a slow-receding tide, or hairline
and I, first standing lighthouse-still,
began to walk again, my single
set of footprints strung behind me
through the sand, like displaced shells
Andrew McMillan
Andrew McMillan has been poet-in-residence of his own life for 20 years. Born in Barnsley, he now lives, studies and works in Lancaster. His work has previously appeared in various publications such as Acumen, The North, The Reader, The Red Wheelbarrow, Fin and Dreamcatcher. His first pamphlet is due out from Red Squirrel Press in October.