Nostalgia

 (after Dawn Lundy Martin)

 

dear one the sea smells of nostalgia

and I smell of nostalgia

and I smell of the sea

trussed up in nets of wanting you

your hand between my legs

a kind of clamping

when Alice and her mother were here

ripping down the ivy

I thought of you

all that dust

I imagined climbing up

my tubers needling their way

into your brickwork

you would rip me down

no doubt about that

or maybe use your shed poisons

dear one I taste nostalgia

I ache for your hardness

your seaweed smell

 

 

Julia Webb lives in Norwich and is a graduate of The University of East Anglia’s Poetry MA. She is a poetry editor for Lighthouse. Her first collection Bird Sisters will be published by Nine Arches Press in spring 2016.