Poetry
From Issue III (2018)Ballast Water
by COLETTE LAWLOR
stops ships listing,
riding too high
when empty of cargo—
each small sea
carries invertebrates, eggs,
algae across oceans.
The docked boat rises
as, from the hold, tropical
is jettisoned into temperate.
Surveying fauna
of Southampton Water,
the biologist
lists,
her notebook fills
with species—
Mitten Crab, Round Goby,
Zebra Mussel, Comb Jelly,
Seastar, Slipper Limpet.
Given weight,
they no longer float
like motes in an empty room.
Big Green | BATHSHEBA VEGHTE
Oil on aluminum, 24 x 13 in., 2016
Colette Lawlor
Colette Lawlor’s poems have been published in magazines and anthologies including The Oklahoma Review, Aesthetica, Mslexia, Southlight, and Electric Acorn. She received her MA in creative writing from Lancaster University in 2009, and her writing incorporates her interests in biology and landscape. She lives overlooking Morecambe Bay, England, and works as a biology lecturer.
Bathsheba Veghte
Bathsheba Veghte received her BA in fine arts from Bowdoin College. She has worked as a printmaker and was an artist in residence at the Kala Institute in Berkeley. Her work is in the Permanent Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Art as well as in many collections on both coasts. She is currently exploring paintings on aluminum, a surface she finds exciting both for its rendering of luminosity and smoothness of surface. Her website is bathshebaveghte.com.