You set off with a duck stance, feet snug

in fins and an underwater camera strapped

to your freckled brow. You turn with

a double thumb gesture, then slip under

like a cormorant. I abandon my book

 

marking the page with a razorshell sliver.

I scan the water for splashing fins and a snorkel

of luminous green, but every blasted kid for miles

is in the sea. Soon, ice-cream van jingles

pull them from waves.

 

The only kid left in the surf, you bob up

with a mullet of dulse waving reassurance.

As silt clouds settle, hermit crabs scuttle

in scavenged shells. Metres away with its

umber streaked bell and tentacle swish;

 

a compass jellyfish, the prompt to rise for air.

The gurgled speech and bubbled spume,

a stripped back muffled soundtrack.

After the video ends, I share how you

 

kicked the least, slithering out

only eight days late. The midwife

peeled away your caul, asked did

I want this gelatinous shawl, declaring

this child will never drown. 

 

Lorraine Carey’s poetry, haiku and art explore ecocentrism, environmental responsibility and resilience. She uses landscape, ornithology, migration and delicate systems as conduits to explore loss, survival, marginalisation and belonging. Her poems are widely anthologised and feature in Magma, The Stinging Fly, Spelt, Allium, Poetry Ireland Review, Bracken, Loch Raven Review,14 Magazine and The Cormorant among others. Her art has appeared in Skylight 47, Olentangy Review and Barren Magazine. Her first collection From Doll House Windows was published in 2017 by Revival Press. An Agility Award recipient in 2023, she was selected for The Freedom to Write Project 2024. As an artist, she works mainly in oil and watercolour, often experimenting with sea glass, stone and slate. Her palette evokes intricate coastal and rural tapestries, where unspoilt areas thrive and adapt naturally.