we are surprised when the ocean returns the things we throw away

                                                                                                                                                  / when it takes our abridged version of events and floods the train station, breaks over several ancient sea walls, logjams the cross bridge, cakes sand into carpet / does fault lie in uniformity / spare cables, knotted netting, twisting shadows like kelp / the ocean’s words are multiple, garbled, direct – but we still have not mastered translation of movement / we’re still listening to audio files of the sea’s cadence repackaged as entertainment and sinning / two point five billion coffee cups per annum / we argue over the verb choice and where the punctuation goes / we talk at length about how hard is that process / one truck load of plastic every minute / we amuse ourselves finding complicated, Greek-origin words for the test / un-opened, unused bottles of bleach / the myths reshape a mother birthing serpents, so we write essays on her fault / who are we to judge a serpent’s worth? / rusted knives, but no less dull / instead, we focus on insurance money / a plastic ring takes the life of several seagulls, an otter, a family of tuna / repeated the next day, and the next day, and the next day / and we are surprised when the ocean returns the things we throw away

 
SK Grout (she/they) grew up in Aotearoa/New Zealand, has lived in Germany and now splits her time as best she can between London and Auckland. She is the author of the micro chapbook “to be female is to be interrogated” (2018, the poetry annals). She holds a post-graduate degree in creative writing from City, University of London and is a Feedback Editor for Tinderbox Poetry. Her work also appears in Cordite Poetry Review, trampset, Banshee Lit, Parentheses Journal, Barren Magazine and elsewhere. More information here: https://skgroutpoetry.wixsite.com/poetry