this is the way the thing began flickering in the shallows turquoise, violet, lemon, half- seen, caught in jade water the effect of refraction was to make it seem closer clearer than it really was perhaps the tide ebbed, or perhaps the rocks advanced: sunlight is tricky Mandy Macdonald is an Australian writer living in
We fall blinking in to darkness to the unravelling of trees pits of dying yellow deforming our blindspots. With our hands tied, fields are flooded, new bodies of water taking shape in an undignified manner. Treasures are buried deep in to a merciless ground. Nothing speaks out, resigned to grey after the decadence of summer. Sometimes
One ice axe, well used. Three snow anchors suitable for approach slopes. Set of ice screws still in box. Pitons and pegs with plenty of use in them. One each adze and narrow hammer. Two blades, one with holster. Various leashes. Range of thermal gear – to fit medium size man. No longer required due
I have cold hands. You press your back against them but the adage does not hold – my heart would thrill a cryogenicist. There have been men before you who set up such a wailing when I palm-printed their bare shoulders. One I gave a pair of frozen wings, feathery veins cracking into
Inside the dogger: knotted nets, entangled fins and red-rubbed scales where hooks tore cheeks; the old bulb fails and sinks the scrimpings of South Wales’ scraped waters into darkness, wet and slippery as an elver’s neck. A trawlerman, unorthodox, concealed in this caliginy of mangled plunder from the sea a vervain-scented treasury a simple unwaxed