Tide (Jo Langdon)

‘I just want to remember / in full, ugly color’ — Emily O’Neill

How it felt held under
the pier then released
like trash;

the words that came
after — ‘at least
he’s getting some.’

Joked away
on the long, quiet street —

Here’s a cork of anger
rising up — flotsam

to go no further than pebbles
glinting; the night

stretching out, out.
The waves came barely, barely:
there & gone & gone
 


Jo Langdon is the author of a chapbook of poetry, Snowline (2012), which was co-winner of the 2011 Whitmore Press Manuscript Prize. Her second collection, Glass Life, is forthcoming with Five Islands Press. Jo teaches literary studies and creative writing as a casual academic, and is the creative non-fiction editor for Mascara Literary Review. She currently lives in Geelong, Victoria.