Salters Ghost Poem by mark littler

There are things that remember
Mirror shows a strangler
ivory shot box cries Elephant
chalk foot walk where a neat figure woman this side of twenty says ' I have just been for a swim' then disappears

Peppers ghost
Salters ghost

nothing to see
cotton and wool
blue and anchor
bell peal
nice body

Is this a badger game?
brock corner of fatter mates hard giggling on front and back cameras
she is too old for you

She has my mothers hair
my grandmothers hair
like steam and sink passing over Einstein's Swiss magnet and axis wire

just going for a swim
and the sea turns
what a lot of chaos

Bubble
August over and again, again and over
take her time - this side of twenty
returning carriage
Tommy Flanders unburied
plots of dangerous Agatha
chuff railway posters
a shop that sells one thing for sixpences
brittle tea and white laced buns
cockney sports boats and boaters
double ended postcards on the pier
lost pic 'nickers
big wives at the bust over small husbands

changes
mouth like scream and wet bladderwrack
see saw drown the lady
tragic wailing ladies

eyes are cold like curling shells
upon which old crag painters make strokes of a ship going down
masts, rigs and Bessie names
Nancy in the storm
Isabella and the Avalanche

'are you coming back from a swim? ' - I said this - sounds sinister

she smiles like cornfield
she smiles like bride

never comes back