Cameo Marlatt

fog is feathers, guga* down,

white clamour dampened,

distance folded shut.

rock-dark children

lose thought of land,

wash themselves white

to black wingtip:

sharp bodies

cutting trails of air

rise

to paddle dawn-slick sea,

heads yellow-blushed

and dripping.

around them we

slip shelf and

plummet, through

sky and salt,

to break

beak, skull,

on grey water.

*guga: a young gannet

Cameo Marlatt is a Canadian writer living in Scotland, where she is studying towards a Doctorate of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. Currently, she is working on a collection of poetry and essays on the topic of zoopoetics. She is the co-author of A Drink of One’s Own: Cocktails for Literary Ladies, and her poetry has been published in From Glasgow to Saturn and Lighthouse.