CUTTLEFISH

Sam Henley Smith

Highly developed mollusc, 
ten-arm hunter, no skeleton just

a backbone, the only evident remains
once the sea has cleared a life.

Saltwater ran through your vertebrae Dad, 
a naval recruit, tattooed arms 
that held me tight, marked you as mine 
with colours faded, and images
re-drawn by sloughing skin.

Now, disorientated by the cloud of ink 
in your wake, I am your ghost-crab 
come to inspect this abandoned frame
you once called home.

Sam Henley Smith is a teacher and Person Centred Therapist who has worked in Pupil Referral Units and Adolescent High Dependency Psychiatric Units. She is passionate about the power of literature to build self-awareness and help develop empathy and is currently specialising in Bibliotherapy. She turned particularly to poetry after the sudden death of her parents at the beginning of the pandemic and has work published in a variety of journals including Anthropocene and One Hand Clapping. In 2021 Sam was long-listed for the Plough Poetry Prize, and commended by Jacqueline Saphra in the Winchester Poetry Prize. Her poems also appear in wave eleven of iamb. Sam lives near Southampton and tweets @FictionPrescri1.