An Irregular Family Villanelle: Cornwall, August 2025

All thoughts can be bent like a spoon,
even this sunny, wave-splashy afternoon.
Lost pasts twist and shout in the wind.

The sea morphs green to blue.
‘You must catch the wave; the wave won’t catch you.’
All thoughts can be bent like a spoon.

Francis and Maxime hurl howlers at the sky;
Jamie makes a wicked cottage pie.
Lost pasts twist and shout in the wind.

Each lane unspools its herring-bone stone charm.
Tommy with a child on either arm.
All thoughts can be bent like a spoon.

Jessie suspends the how and when;
Arya and Delfi are ‘president’ again.
Lost pasts twist and shout in the wind.

The sea morphs green to blue.
My mother lived here once; so, too, did you.
All thoughts can be bent like a spoon.
Lost pasts twist and shout in the wind.

Harry Ricketts

Harry Ricketts has published thirty-five books, most recently First Things: A Memoir and  (co-written with David Kynaston) Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes: The Story of an Ashes Classic (both 2024) and his thirteenth poetry collection, Bonfires on the Ice (2025). He lives in Wellington Te Whanganui-a-Tara, loves cricket and coffee, and teaches a creative non-fiction course at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.