Category: Folklore

One sip of saltwine

Soak the night-bloom petals in blood, drop 
them in the water – watch the waves froth 

sunset pink. The tide determines the strength
of your resolve. Cup your hands around

the ocean, rinse the years-old bonfire smudge 
from your mouth; salvage the flotsam and jetsam 

washed up around you. This is how pain set free
swims toward the horizon – with the silvergold 

of pulling shark teeth out of silt, balm on the bite
marks that punctured your faded tattoo.

Revival

Summer is a climb, a pilgrimage of gold
and green, and in these honey blossoms
is your goddess gift of well-earned rest
before the amble down to mulch and snow.

Woodbine twines around my ankles and knees
while infinite harvested sunbeams quiver
in the grass, hug the soles of feet aching
with a week of unknown sorrow, legs heavy

from sparring with the devil’s kin. Brushing 
dirt from my hands I hear a whisper of ‘this 
too shall pass’ – my grandmother’s wisdom 
like a warm hand at the base of my neck.

Delia Derbyshire teaches music in the next life

He is a sequence repeating now:
a recording on the atmosphere.
This impression of life, somewhere

a sound—a credit to her. He would
not recognise her in all he made
of his time here. Her name never

crossed his lips but hung over
his art. I am not a credit to him.
Alone. I will not let him follow

me; he has not been where I am.
She shows him waves and where
to place his hands in a synapse

without harm. How to round out
his emptiness into a crystal ball
and find the boy he lost inside it.

*One Sip of Saltwine & Revival are from Kate's book A View from the Phantasmagoria originally.  "Delia Derbyshire teaches music in the next life is from Kate's book Sunward/Moonwise*

Bio: Kate Garrett is a writer with witchy ways and a significant folklore, history, and horror obsession. Her work is widely published online and in print. Her most recent books are the historical, time-hopping verse novella Hart & Ha'penny (TwistiT Press, March 2021) and the full-length poetry collection Sunward/Moonwise (Impspired, June 2021). Born and raised in rural southern Ohio, USA, Kate moved to the UK in 1999, where she still lives now - in Shropshire with her husband, five children, and an assortment of land and water creatures. Find her on Instagram @thefolklorefaery, Twitter @folklore_faery, and her website www.kategarrettwrites.co.uk