• Week 52 • Tritina •

a phoenix picks at the bones of the year and
their savour, I’m told, is sweet and salt. What
past year is sweeter than mine, is more

salt? these last few months the words have had more
trouble finding me amongst mountains and
flat-bottomed vallies; my voice has changed, what

with its edges scrubbed porous, soaking more
of older worlds. yet the phoenix, bones and
words, and, yes, even my voice, all know what

I should: I’ve all i need here, and what more?

A tritina is a 10 line poem and very much the little sister of a sestina. The last word of each line are the same three, ‘platted’ if you like, into a pattern, and then used in the second half of the 10th line.