Rosie Johnston’s four poetry books, published by Lapwing Publications in Belfast, are Sweet Seventeens (2010), Orion (2012), Bittersweet Seventeens (2014) and Six-Count Jive – new and selected 17-syllable stanzas (2019). Her poems have appeared or featured in London Grip, Culture NI, FourxFour, The Honest Ulsterman, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Hedgerow, on the Mary Evans Picture Library’s Poems and Pictures blog and in Live Canon’s anthologies ‘154: In Response to Shakespeare’s Sonnets’ (2016) & ‘New Poems for Christmas’ (2018). She has read her poetry widely and between 2014 and 2018 was poet in residence for the Cambridgeshire Wildlife Trust, until she moved to live by the sea in Kent.
Seasalter – March 2019
A gusty, slant-lit day. Two dogs
pinball
among low-tide pools. Slate blue.
Rain clouds stoop to the horizon –
ragged warriors
reaching for their swords.
A rusty tinge to the sky line:
another squall
gathers up her skirts.
North Sea rests fists on hips,
eases her back,
leaves foam-sea-spit where it lies.
Rain’s naughty children,
all in armour,
run hand in hand across our roofs.
Sunshine hums a patient
lullaby,
knits new gloves of beloved’s love.
Rosie Johnston
