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Caroline Carver: I’m not a Jamaican or a Bermudian or a Canadian or even a Cornishwoman but a curious mid-Atlantic mixture of all of these with a bit of Inuit thrown in and therefore somewhat like a coelacanth: confused about origins and the big Why?
The bird turned into a man
so beautiful
snow lay on his shoulders
like ermine
was he petrel or fulmar?
he didn’t say
At first he came
only in dreams
one summer night
lay with her
at dawn she left her house
to marry him
Who could explain
her father’s rage?
His storms reached
across oceans
she knew full joy
only six days before
he killed her husband
threw her in his umiak –
pushed her overboard
when winds frightened him
she wouldn’t give in
gripped the boat so hard
he had to chop her fingers off
one by one
did not know
as she sank into her new Kingdom
they would transform
become whales narwhals seals walruses…
Among those she loves best
Singing Midshipmen
fish which like humpback whales
sing to the seabirds
make sailors who hear them
believe in mermaids
Poem published: Acumen.
Publications:
Three Hares, Oversteps Books, 2009. ISBN 978-1-906856-06-9, £8
Jigharzi An Me, Semicolon Press, 2000. ISBN 0-9533525-2-8, £6.95 (from Caroline)
Bone-Fishing, Peterloo Poets, 2005, ISBN 1-904324-32-0, £7.95
address:
Michaelmas Cottage
14 Passage Hill
Mylor
Cornwall
TR11 5SN
UK
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