Poetry: 'Wrecker' by Belinda Rimmer

She tucks a strand of hair into her ribbed hat;
the wind has an itch, a liking for blonde.

Light from the lantern draws her face to shadow.
She's dressed in dark blue for season, quality of sky.

Fog hangs, greasy, not too solid.
She remembers a time it came down so thick

ships couldn't see her flame, bright and tempting.
Tonight, luck prevailing, a ship will sweep in,

not just up on the rocks where her light swings
but run aground, bowed as rickets,

spitting out its gold and silver and pearls,
its whiskey, rifles, tubs of tobacco.

Chained to the sea, to what it might gift her,
she never hears the curdled cries

of sailors, or thinks how scary it might be
at the bottom of an ocean.