Clair Chilvers was a cancer scientist, and latterly worked for the UK National Health Service. She divides her time between writing and volunteering for the charity Mental Health Research UK that she co-founded. She lives in Gloucestershire, UK.

She started writing poetry after she retired. She studied with Dr Edward Clarke at the Oxford Poets’ Workshop and with Dr Angela France at University of Gloucestershire.  She is a member of a number of Cheltenham writing groups.

She has had poems published in online and print magazines including Acumen, Agenda, Allegro, Amaryllis, Artemis, Atrium, the Ekphrastic Review, Impspired, Ink Sweat and Tears, Live Encounters, Poetry Atlas, Reach Poetry, Sarasvati and Snakeskin. She won second prize in the Poetry Kit Ekphrastic Competition 2020 and her poems have been longlisted or commended in the Cinnamon Press Pamphlet Prize 2020, and Poetry Kit Competition 2020. Her poem Minnesota Dreaming was nominated for the Forward Prize 2022. She has two published collections: Out of the Darkness (Frosted Fire, 2021) and Island (Impspired Press, 2022) . www.clairchilverspoetry.co.uk  twitter @cedc13 Facebook.

Hayling Island

I
It is a small flat in a fifties brick-built block
the stairs from the front door are narrow
and open into a small apartment
one living room, a kitchen
two bedrooms and a bathroom.
It needs redecorating so we bring pots and brushes 
and paint a room each time we come.
It is homely squashed on the sofa with the children
watching television on wet winter weekends
before we take them back to school on Sunday evening.
Outside the wind howls, the windows are draughty
and the waves crash on the stony beach.
Next morning we will walk across the road
to see the fishermen in waterproofs with their lines 
and bait dug up at low water. 
Some have folding stools and thermos flasks
we never see a catch.
Is it an escape from home?

II
I have packed my sailing bag, white oilskins and sea boots
made a tarte au pommes for tomorrow’s supper 
sit with my book, all ready to go, waiting for him to come home.
There will be a wild flurry as we pile into the car
the cats into their baskets, the pudding hidden from their view.
It isn’t a long drive – maybe two hours in the Friday rush-hour traffic.
We stop at the new Havant Waitrose just before the causeway
buy food for the weekend – treats that our home supermarket doesn’t stock.
We can smell the sea as we cross over to the island
take the backroad to buy fish and chips for supper at the usual place 
bustling on a Friday evening with weekenders from the campsites.
It is a calm night, and the boatman ferries us out to Jubilate 
moored near the harbour entrance.
We clamber aboard, let the cats out to prowl round the deck, 
and open a bottle of wine.
We sit in the cockpit, watching the sky darken,
hear the slap of wavelets against the hull as the tide turns
and we turn to face into the gentle breeze.
We leave the worries of work behind us; 
weather set fair for tomorrow.
We shall leave in the chill before dawn 
to catch the best of the tide
to take us westwards along the Solent 
watch the lightening sky as we sail 
out past the Needles to Studland Bay.
Tomorrow evening we shall launch the tender,
light a BBQ on the beach near Old Harry Rocks
try to forget that tomorrow we must go home.

Salcombe

Four a.m. on a summer morning
the nightclubs are closing,                      
the young drawn inexorably                                      
towards the warm aroma of the bakery.                    

New-baked bread, yeasty, floury,            
waiting, almost too hot to touch,                               
to have the crusty corners torn off                              
and eaten on the way home.                                      

In the bakery, the clatter of baking tins                                              
as the loaves are turned out to cool.           
The shelves behind the counter piled high:                            
bloomers and baguettes,                                     
granary, wholemeal, sourdough,                                   
pains au raisin, au chocolate, flaky croissants                                    
for breakfast with butter and apricot jam.     

*****************        

The smell of bacon frying greets me from the galley;	
perfect timing for the still-warm bread.			
I make ready the nets, the pots				
the engine idling quietly smells of diesel.			
We’ll eat our breakfast as we cross the bar.			

At the wheel I sing under my breath					
for those in peril on the sea
remember the last time the maroon went off			
how we ran through pouring rain				
to the lifeboat station						
the flares from just off the rocks said it all.			

We got them off, waves breaking over us,			
though the yacht was wrecked.				
They were the lucky ones.
A few prayers were said that night.                                          
 
******************                                
 
On Mondays bread-makers, six of them,
come to the church hall to bake while they pray.
They set their part-proved loaves on floury boards,                                                             
the springy dough sour-smelling as they knead it
prayerfully, a liminal connection to heaven.                                              

An hour later, the hall is filled 
with the comforting fresh-bread smell                                    
that sparks childhood memories
of opening the lid of a corn bin                                                           
to feed grandfather’s chickens                                                           
on a misty summer morning.                                          
They say grace before their cup of tea                                               
with a thick slice of bread and strawberry jam.               

My Island

Every year I go back on a busy Corfu tourist flight
take a taxi to the Arcadion Hotel
dine on the roof terrace that overlooks the Citadel
sleep soundly in anticipation of the Island.
Next day if the sea is calm, 
I will take the hydrofoil from the New Port
sit outside at the back as we speed past to the land’s end,
and cross the rough strait to Paxos.
I remember the rusty old Kamelia that took a car or two,
deliveries of vegetables for the Gaios store, 
new chairs and a frig for a villa perhaps, 
islanders returning from a visit to the doctor or the bank.

It took us three hours in those days, 
the ship rolling and bucking across the waves
the old women sitting below deck muttering prayers
we outside on the deck exhilarated by the wind and the spray. 
Tomorrow I shall be met by my friend
taken to a little rented studio
where I shall sit overlooking Gaios
and remember.