Castaways

The dead are with us every day:
they’re here in the backward glance
from your son, as he leaves the house,
reminiscent of your grandfather;
no doubt he gave the same glance
to his own mother as he left to set sail,
eyes wide with adventure, and the fervour of a cause.

They’re here when you close your eyes
and drift back to your first home;
you turn the key in the lock
and pass through the porch,
with its polished stones above the door,
into your living space, with its green walls;
your tiny portable television;
your parallel bookshelves;
your over-watered cactus;

and visitors long-gone appear again
alive once more,
as real now as they ever were,
in glorious technicolour
unmatched on any cinematic scale.

They are here in that fleeting moment
between dream and sleep,
or in the casual shadow which flits
across the corner of your eye
which, when turning
vanishes without trace.

When you are cast away
to free-fall in a starless space,
they provide us with an anchor
to our past;
here in the reflection of our face;
remind us of a certainty
that no-one is an island;
that what went before shall come again
and this, too, shall pass.

Virginia Betts is a tutor, writer, and actor from Ipswich, UK. She has four books published, The Camera Obscure (supernatural and gothic-noir stories), Tourist to the Sun and That Little Voice (poetry). She has also had numerous poems and stories published (Acumen, Minerva Rising, Bristol Noir, Urban Pigs, The Weird and Whatnot, Pure Slush, A Thin Slice of Anxiety), performed on stage and on BBC Radio, and she has won awards for her writing. Her debut novel, Burnt Lungs and Bitter Sweets is a gritty piece of Punk ‘BritGrit’ published by Urban Pigs Press, with whom she is the newest editor. Virginia is also a member of Black and White Productions Theatre Company and her most recent role was as Patricia Highsmith. Virginia is a member of The Writer’s Guild, Equity, Suffolk Writers, The Wolsey Writers, and the Suffolk Poetry Society. She writes a monthly blog article for the Felixstowe Magazine App and Author’s Electric. 

Website: https://virginiabetts.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ginnb900/ (@ginnb900)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/virginia.c.betts.9/  (virginiacbetts)
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/virginiabwrites.bsky.social @vriginiabwrites.bsky.social

‘Castaways’ is the third featured piece in the Urban Pigs Press CASTAWAYS callout, which celebrates the release of the latest Urban Pigs title Robinson Crusoe Maybe by guest editor Colin Gee. Colin is founder and editor of The Gorko Gazette and author of several books.