Alan Peat

Trace Fossils

I am a mudlark; at low tide I walk the Thames foreshore, head down, searching for the leftovers of forgotten lives. 

Clay pipes are my most common find.  Sometimes you get a whole one; more often it’s just a broken bowl. On a good day a mouthpiece emerges from the ooze and if you look closely there’ll be teeth marks where someone long dead held it in their mouth. The inside will be black with their tobacco. 

At night, we mudlarks dream of buttery gold: an aiglet from a hat lost in a sixteenth century breeze; a coin from a pocket; a ring fallen from a thinning finger. I people my sleep with these stories.

But it’s clay pipes I pull most often from the sucking mud. And I wonder what their brief owners thought of as they drew the smoke deep into their lungs; and I wonder what they dreamt of as they blew a cloud into their century’s air.

day moon. . .
where the bed was
flattened carpet

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About the Author

Alan Peat is a UK-based poet and author. His work has featured in Frogpond, Mayfly, Heliosparrow, The Heron’s Nest, Presence, Hedgerow, and Blithe Spirit, among others. In 2021 he placed third in the International Golden Triangle Haiku contest and second in the New Zealand International Haiku contest.