The Beach House, Winter

by Sarah Gwyn Williams

Night tide rolls the shingle westward
to the beach house door.
Moondrift ghosts the blown-glass frosty
and we, beneath the rat-paw quiet eaves
submerge in oyster-bed and
breathe like bursts of fire under water,
prising open mussel shells
and tasting seaweed, softly
with fronded tongues of anemone.
Drift-riding currents we suspend time
in pools, deep green and brined
by our own saline skin.
Surfacing, we find our breath
has danced the window into ice
and we rise, blanketed, shaking white salt
from our hair, to defy water with fire.

Sarah Gwyn Williams was born in Swansea, Wales, in 1971 and taught in the primary sector for ten years. In 2008, she gained a Master’s degree in Creative and Media Writing from the University of Wales. She has a special interest in Welsh writing in English (formerly known as Anglo-Welsh writing) and is currently working on a poetry collection inspired by the landscape and people of South Wales. She lives on the edge of the Gower peninsula with her three young children.
Back to Issue Two: Winter 2009