where sea meets suburb

Poem written at Passing Through on the 10th September

by the murky mudflats
little houses stretch into the saltmarsh
like thousands of asbestos-riddled pebbles,
the tide comes and goes, slowly eating away at foundations
never meant to rest on coastlines.
in the distance,
a hidden sanctuary sandbar shakes
with the ever-present rumblings of all-day traffic.
rust-rotted pipes snake through vast underground networks,
seeping foul waste poised to poison the harbour,
yet still,
the tide eddies and swells through the mangroves, bringing life from decay.
so though I lay awake at night
thinking,
about blue bottle caps in sand
and fish filled with tiny plastics,
in the morning,
I watch the herons leave their nests high in the pines from my backyard,
and know they’ll return when dusk comes.

By Annikita