The Sea Witch
by and published in Edition Six of Pomegranate
When she gave me her voice
mirrors cracked, I sang love songs off balconies,
recited Shakespeare. I ran around the house
laughing into the echoes, brandishing
my voice like a jewelled blade.
When she gave me her voice
I joined a sex line. I did voiceovers, radio adverts,
the impressions run at Stratford.
I cold-called, played pranks, learnt Chinese.
When she gave me her voice
I learned evil, seduced men with poems,
campaigned for their free speech,
screamed injustices out into the megaphoned night.
I revelled in every argument I was involved in.
When she gave me her voice
I began to like words like “haberdashery” and “marzipan”.
I lured sailors onto the oceans rocky shelves
to read them ghost stories about Atlantis.
When she gave me her voice
I raided dictionaries looking for the longest words.
Then I pouted at the mirror, tenderly,
I unfurled each one like a private sutra.
When she gave me her voice
I bought a tape recorder,
and one glittering piece at a time
traded all of my treasure for canisters of helium.
David Tait
David Tait is 23 and new to the whole poetry submitting lark. He is working on his first collection of poetry and hopes to finish this before death. He likes rewriting fairytales with a twist and so naturally stalks (though sadly not literally) Carol Ann Duffy and Jeanette Winterson.