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By Erin Clark December 29th, the day for making pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas a Becket They’ve my preferred weak London pils on tap here in the Canterbury pub which bears his name. Turbulent priest, disrupting airways since the twelfth century: he did not put on his own oxygen mask first and so – more miracles, please, martyr, at thy crash-shrine. It’s that week after the holiday, when time wibbles, wobbles, unmoored from month and year. The great Mass always is undone by what follows. Brains addle in these disorganized days. They spill onto the cathedral floor awaiting doom’s knock and choir’s chant, tourists of a murderous king’s shrug. No doubt this town, the seat of British Christendom- that-was, owes its importance to this state-sanctioned honor killing. The days of Christmas puddle at the ankles a low salty tide full of commemorations, barnacles. Here, pub-goers play board games, order roasts. An as-yet-unlit woodstove stands cold against the shy sea breeze blowing in from Ramsgate. I keep my wool hat on and quaff my pint pre-evensong, wherein, I’m told, some hidden hands will hammer at the west doors murderously when the hour is at hand. An intentional ghost in aural time anchoring our present wanderings the crowds who drift and largely shop the sales and, if brave or energetic, bestride the muddy hills, walking in all but a pilgrim fashion. Erin Clark (she/her) is an American writer & priest living in London. Her work has appeared in publications in the US, UK and Canada, including The Selkie, the Oxonian Review, the New Critique, Free Verse Revolution, The Primer, Over/Exposed, the Crank, Geez, About Place and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook Whom Sea Left Behind will be out in 2023 (Alien Buddha Press). You can find her online at emclark.co or on Twitter @e_m_clark.
Erin's other work on Foreshadow: Found poem: upon arrival at the Abbey (Poetry, July 2023) Orchard labyrinth, overgrown (Poetry, August 2023) and there is that Leviathan (Poetry, November 2023)
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