A Poem by Mel Tibbs

Oregon

We drive so far. Places slide past the window:
Chuckanut, Samish, Tillicum.
A paper bag greased with the spice of Portland potatoes,
jojos – quirk of the country’s upper left corner.

The beach, at last, is rolled out like a map,
knurled with the silky routes of the tides.
Our heels press the ocean away from the sand,
the cuffs on my trousers folded like origami boats.
And the sky is mending itself beyond the frame
of the photograph my father took.

The salt of the Pacific, spread thin on this vast threshold,
wants to leave the water but with water.
Then the ocean is spray and the air is salt;
I taste it on the hair which nets my lips.
In the photograph, I was a real person after all.

Who is holding on to whom? The sky grips the kite
and on the end of its string is me, surrendering my full weight.
In a matter of time, everything will be inverted.
And later, when the photograph returns
in its slick pile of joy and disappointment, my father says,
That’s a real prize-winner,
and I am catalogued, tangible;
a taste of salt lodged forever in my lip.

Mel Tibbs lives in South Devon. Her poetry has recently appeared in IS&T and 14 Magazine and is forthcoming in Clarion. Her work has been longlisted by Mslexia and both the Fish and The Plough Poetry Prizes and was commended in the 2025 Indigo Spring Poetry Competition.