Guest Poem by Janet Laugharne

Janet Laugharne was runner up in the erbacce-prize for poetry 2022. Her debut poetry collection is ‘Greenscapes … and other poems’ (erbacce press, 2022). Her work has appeared, among others, in Acumen, Orbis, Prole, Litro Online, Reflex Fiction, Dream Catcher and Poetry Salzburg Review. She publishes fiction as J.L. Harland with Jacqueline Harrett. What Lies Between Them, (Dixi Books, 2022) and ‘Angelo’s Journey: From Bardi to Pontypridd’, (Harland Press, 2024). This poem is from Acumen 112.

Sightseeing

A few summers ago,
the cloudless blue a marker
to my memory that it was during
Covid times,
I saw above my city garden
that fantastic single bird.
A few flaps of its gigantic wings
and it was gone,
passing over Cardiff and who knows where else;
not in any hurry for sure.
Such confidence, such power,
sky high,
and me small as a mouse,
catching sight of it only because
I was hanging out the washing.