Fragmented Voices

Method I

Sitting outside her house in my car
I picture a concrete wall with a curved lip

that turns the energy of each wave 
back on itself. 

After a few minutes I too am 
smooth, hard and grey 

there’s nothing to latch onto 
nowhere for anything to stick. 

I’ve come late to this technique 
and she is pent, she’s fretting in her armchair

as I open the back door, call through the hatch 
put the kettle on to boil

and all the water that makes up my mother
begins to simmer and seethe.



Method II

You saw the lie of the land earlier than I did. 
Maybe you were already grading sediments at school

gluing mud particles with algae in the science lab 
and selecting pioneer plants — 

cord grass, and glasswort that turns crimson 
every autumn. 

What’s more, you worked quickly, single-mindedly. 
Before I knew it, your salt marsh was vast 

and acres of sea aster sea lettuce sea lavender 
stretched between us.

Now I’m far enough away to be invisible. 
If I run I might sink to my waist. 

If I send up a flare 
only peewits and curlews are likely to see it.





Deborah Harvey is co-director of The Leaping Word poetry consultancy, providing advice and counselling support for writers exploring the personal in their work. Her sixth poetry collection, Love the Albatross, will be published by Indigo Dreams in autumn 2024.