Calling out the fathoms – Sarah Mnatzaganian

Calling out the fathoms

Robin brings a finished cello back
down to the kitchen for company.
He tilts the shallow maple shell
into the calliper’s deep green jaws

and sings out each measurement
like a seaman swinging his lead line
and calling out the fathoms. I scribe
thicknesses onto a cello-shaped grid

watching my hand catch and turn
the satisfaction in his voice into bold
italics, keen as a fleet of sailing boats
on the starboard tack in high wind.

Sarah Mnatzaganian is an Anglo-Armenian poet.  Shortlisted for the Poetry Business pamphlet competition 2016/17, her poems have been published in Atrium, The North, Fenland Reed, London Grip, Magma, Poems in the Waiting Room, As Above, So Below, Write to be Counted and #MeToo a women’s anthology edited by Deborah Alma. She studies with Peter and Ann Sansom and Moniza Alvi.