Poetry by Maggie Sawkins

Striders

You kneel on the bank to cup the water
              because you want to forget
 
but you could swallow half the river and not still 
              the stories in your head.

All night it runs 
               through you

churning the random 
                possessions of the dead.

In fits, you imagine the last steps 
               of those who loved you

how they ambled 
               in the pitch of night 

towards what they hoped 
               was halfway-home.

You tilt your face
                and there on the river’s a swallow

dipping its beak
                to scoop up striders

scuttering across the surface
                 of water.

There’s a terrible thirst to be found 
                in everything.

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Maggie Sawkins lives in Portsmouth and delivers creative writing projects in community and health care settings.  Her live literature production ‘Zones of Avoidance’, inspired by her personal and professional involvement with addiction, won the 2013 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.  Maggie is the founder and organiser of Tongues&Grooves in the Community. www.hookedonwords.me

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