DAY 16
Sandcastles - Peter Burrows
You scoop up the wet clumps and drop with a splat
into the bucket, slapping the top flat.
Last time, the soft grains ran through our fingers.
Nothing could we make of it. But today
we have our chance. You had some calling
pulling us here, determined to return
before we left, to build upon that thought.
Nanna and Granddad are waiting. The wind up,
your woolly hat pulled down tight, you giggle,
oblivious to the surrounding storm.
Turned out, half-patterned, one corner slant-topped,
you repair and remould. The lump takes form
realising inside out your vision.
You alter, revealing the shape within.
Look how you go now. Will it still be here
tomorrow? For a short while longer, my love,
but now you’ve made one you can always make more.
In the distance, I can just about see
my parents, waving from the promenade.
Bree - Vivien Jones
Meaning “Strength or an exalted one”.
She was tiny - a full grown woman but in miniature. Since puberty she had never been able to buy clothes off the peg, so she made her own in bright, clashing fabrics. Her shoes were size 2 with clacking high heels and had to be ordered online. She coloured her hair a humming magenta and wore it coiled into a lacquered meringue, sometimes with silver stars scattered in its layers. Most people couldn’t take their eyes off her.
Constantly being questioned at conferences by bored security guards, often asking if she’d lost her mummy, she learnt to stride forward past them as if they didn’t exist. Indeed, they might discover next day that they, or rather their job, didn’t.
She had developed a powerful voice, deep and resonant (she hardly needed a microphone and anyway hated the fuss of having to adjust its height every time she spoke) and she wrote riveting speeches that made her audience forget she was standing on a box to deliver them. She was most comfortable, most formidable, sitting round a table when no-one else could see the extra cushions beneath her, where it was her wit and quicksilver mind that held their attention. She wasted no time on ‘chat’, stuck strictly to business, ate alone, didn’t drink, didn’t go to the gym. Had no visible friendships.
All this was mere description until she fell in love.
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