Poem of the Week, One Night at the Seaside, Nikki Ellam

One night at the seaside
by Nikki Ellam

filled with drinks

along a moon-lit stroll

on the beach.


We wrote our names in the sand,

and sang the songs we didn’t dare screech

at the karaoke.


So tell me,

how did we come to this?


Here we are,

both of us thinking

thank fuck for the television

showing us bland ways of

using herbs with venison.


The best ways of seasoning

take away the silence we’d have to fill with

talking

about how the months we’ve spent

getting to know each other

have been blown away by the past ten minutes-


like how our sand-scrawled names

will disappear under the morning waves

and stomping of kids armed with spades

and castle-shaped buckets.


That evening,

we watched a celeb-chef show us

how to cook the ‘perfect’ dinner

we will never eat.