Small paper nautilus,
cockleshell octopus,
two of her tentacles
soft wands for conjuring
calcium carbonate
into her miracle
shell, light and delicate,
white ribbed and tuberculed
elegant watercraft,
henceforth and constantly
hers for the captaincy.
Mark Totterdell’s poems have appeared widely in magazines and have occasionally won competitions. His collections are ‘This Patter of Traces’ (Oversteps Books, 2014) and ‘Mapping’ (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2018).
After a brief search,
I find my ten-year-old daughter
in the garden, crouched by my shrubs,
staring at her right hand
extended towards the heavens.
On her index finger crawls a greenish-
yellowish creature
mesmerizing my child
who normally couldn’t sit still.
Looking closer, I see
the miracle of her stillness
is the result of a caterpillar
leisurely making its way up her finger.
She glances up at me with
awe on her face,
the look only a child
experiencing an exciting marvel
for the first time could display.
In that moment I feel the dread
every mother feels
when she realizes her baby
will grow up one day and all
her “firsts” will be gone.
Arlene Antoinette is a poet of West Indian birth, but has given her heart to Brooklyn, New York where she spent her formative years. Her work has been published in The Ginger Collect, The Feminine Collective, Boston Accent Lit, Sick Lit magazine and Girlsense and Nonsense.
Foxglove Journal 