Montol Festival
Midwinter, lanterns shaped like ships and sails
Float up to Chapel Street with you in guise—
A stickman, masked, who marks the Mock and hoists
The papier-mâché seabirds in the frost
I see you light fire-beacons without fire
And misrule Penzance from a hidden craft
This candle dance is one I’ve seen before
Penglaz, the horse of bones, I’ve seen before
The sea has sent me something from that rock—
A handmade coat of ribbons, and a mask
The sea has never minded me before
The balance of this longest night has tipped
Your hands smudge chalk onto my skirt and hair
The moon regards my face without consent
Penwith
Whatever of our lies, I lie with you
Beneath the table stone of Lanyon Quoit
Penzance lies hollow in the winter rain
And ocean water waters Jubilee
The megalith is cold and blocks the sky
I fold your hands and tuck away the guilt
We tie rags on the cloutie tree at night
To lie about the stars that didn’t shine
Each water mark marks water in my heart
And lies above Carn Euny where we stand
Or lie down in the passage and the mud
We lie in beds and grass and pools of salt
The Merry Maidens turned to stone for less
That tree lies down between us when we kiss
Mousehole
Please grab my hand when you fall off a cliff
I called you on the phone from Mousehole wharf
And hid stargazy pie behind the rocks—
These fish heads singing to the cloudy sky
Sink trawlers and their haul before the quay
You’ll find me dead at leisure where the sand
Has come apart and sifted into shapes
That look like creatures but aren’t creatures now
I wonder if the undertow has pulled
Horizons down beneath the sea at night
I have forgotten everything you said
But keep each word in this old amber jar
With fire and oil to shake in case of rain
Here’s something for your trouble in this world
The Brisons
Things will be better when you have stopped sleeping
You’ll haunt the dark coast dressed in white with a flame
Each night you are paler from grief and a blood loss
that soaks like old whale oil through cloth in your head
I’m happy you wrecked here—I know all your footfalls
This morning a wave swept the crew off the ledge
That rock is Great Brison, we stand in a marriage
I am Little Brison, I have never moved
Wrap up in your nightgown and wait in this cold fog
The Captain will fasten a rope round your waist
The deep sea will calm and you’ll die of exhaustion
What does it mean to have died of exhaustion
Davies remembers he forgot to save you
The sea was so rough that no boat could get close
Penberth Cove
I see you turn from shore to sea to shore
You grab my hand to skip the granite stones
To locate what is living in these words,
Lean closer without splintered wood between
The dogs pull on their leashes up the cliff
The owners let them off to lunge at birds
These floats and nets have scratched my foolish leg
Something you said last spring has scratched my leg
You move your hook and hand without the wood
This blistered paint feels smooth against my back
Some days your face has always been my face
To dive no matter what is bad advice
To never dive at all is bad advice
My mouth is always rougher
after storms
Suzanne Bailey lives in southern California with her husband and daughter. She holds an MFA in Fiction from the University of California at Riverside-Palm Desert and travels to Cornwall every summer she‘s able. She is a true introvert and spends most of her life under water.