Bryter Layter, Queen of Hearts

Hush, let’s watch her restless slumber. Never ending. Waiting game.

Ripple river rolling freely, she sleeps beneath your bed. Lily locks drawn over chalk bones, sunken cheeks and cupids bow. Cutting into lands with precious cargo, the mouth of Annan opens wide. She carries them on a wave of promise. To the New World, hearts full of pride.

She sleeps still, a-churning. After all these years. Tattered skirts skip over stumbling stones. Left behind for no one knows. She carried him to the sea, waiting patiently for the tides to bring him home. Bring him home. Bring him home. Bring him home. She calls.

And she flows and flows through fords and waths, crossing the eastern Solway Firth. And she throws and throws, flung from a makeshift, painter’s throne. She’s fallen from his arms. His salty grip made slip from the sea, as water filled her mouth. And lost she was, lost she was, lost she was, that girl. Lost to the Solway. The Solway Firth. Lost she was, lost she was, lost she was that girl. Lost to the Solway.

Oh baby bird, sing upon the wind again. Swooping low, searching for him. Learning what suffering brings, surrender to the tide. Surrender land-locked pride.

And she finds herself diving deep, to find a place of still beneath. Consumed by what’s within, she lays to rest her treasured hurt. Arms out wide and heart behind, she is held on waves of peace. Arms out wide and heart behind, she knows that there is more than this.

Complete and coloured in, swans swim by her feet. Jutting out from pontoon’s bridge, it is here she takes her seat. Queen of Solway, queen of hearts, full unto the end.

Collette Davis