i

It surely cannot last too long
This segregation. Already the count
Has reached some; this year is
Turning three. I, too, turn and keep
Lookout, so often staring out.
Empty and still is the horizon.
The beach swept clean
The streets swept clean
Migrating birds have gone and come
Again and yet once more.
I hear the cuckoo call alone
Turn solo circles with the swifts.
All signs of you are only pinned
to memory.

ii

Beached high up the shingle strand
tides barely lap these clinker boards.
Yet they are surely weathering
– sun bleached grey
– rain drenched moss
– wind burnt where the paint peels.
The chains that anchor down
quite rusty now and feeble
to a great storm surge.

Please pray it comes one Autumn. One Astronomical
tide under a crucifixion sky. Buoyant at last
with a silent cry. Unmoored. Free.
Breaking apart on an outward swell
As you did, whilst I slept on, so well.