Poems: Déjà Vu and Succession

Collage by Sadie Souter, using images from Pexels and Pixabay

Sadie Souter relives a memory by the sea, as time stands still, caught in reflection about the transience of life

Deja Vu
You feel like déjà vu
We skim pebbles and
Watch them sink
It feels like living twice

One day will we forget all this?
The taste of the salt and the sand
And the drowning moon
I’ll write it all down

A name that tastes like home
The shell from the beach
that hangs at the crook of your neck
A box of ragged old letters

Morning calls, taste the dawn
I smooth the crease on your brow
Crawl under covers, a linen womb
And tell me about that dream again

Everything smells so still
Like dust settling
the clock on the mantelpiece
is broken

I can’t tell where I end, and you begin
My hand. Your hand
The pebble flies
It feels like living twice.

Succession
The swimming moon treads water
Sending ripples across the sky
We throw caution to the wind
Drink it all in. Tiptoe on the brink of time

Yesterday you held it close
A tiny sliver of light
Tomorrow a new moon will rise
Together we can taste the dawn

The taste that promises all and none
To do with as we choose
Reaching out further than skin
As if we weren’t made of bones

Made of moonlight and air
The drowning moon surfaces for breath
Smoothing the creases on our foreheads
We curl up in the womb of the night

Whispering secrets and tales of time
I don’t want to move
Because the world is so still. I listen
And listen to the heartbeats of kin

The spluttering cry of a new-born
An old man’s rattling breath
The sound of our mothers and fathers
So, we’ll stay here

Cocooned by the soaring moon
Away from the ravages of time.