7.
	
	   	                       Christmas Eve: someone’s Gran 
       at Bryn Mill park. Her cold-reddened hands 
				              clutch a green vinyl purse. She watches
 
		                   a lone heron    
		perched on a wire cage, dead center of the pond. Child’s cry 

imitates a circling gull, words sliding 
		                          off a black stone tongue. Waxing gibbous moon 

   shines between dead reeds. Sky almost dark 
		                                 at three in the afternoon. The old woman
 
				  stares, frozen, 
 	     transfixed. Heron remains still. Her face 
					                                inside his eye: wind
 
			                  over an empty shell

Christien Gholson  | Tidal Flats 8
Contents | Mudlark No. 63 (2017)