by MARK MILLER
1.
This morning the mist
comes apart before me,
like fabric, like ashes ––
revealing at low tide
sea-wrack and bottle-caps,
necklaces of purple sea-grapes,
bluebottles and ribboned weed,
and like part of an old
bicycle tyre twisted
a bludgeoned eel,
its hooked mouth
hauled into a snarl ––
this estuary,
opaque sheet of glass,
grey water under a greyer sky.
2.
At midday, out on the jetty
the wind pares me to the bone,
the water is pewter and dirty-white-scuffed,
a scrunched grey muslin.
Silver gulls scatter,
tossed into the spray
as if blasted by a giant blow-dryer,
they hold fast, dip and bank sidewards,
clawing the wind’s slippery net of sky.
Pelicans, hunched into themselves,
clump together beneath the bridge pylons,
boats knock and clang,
slammed against their moorings,
the howling wind gives them no rest
it takes hold of a storefront shutter
and won’t let go,
slapping and clunking until it seems
the whole sky will lift off its hinges.
3.
Seen from where I stand
in the late afternoon light,
glowering, aubergine clouds
rumble shoreward.
Drops of rain smack like lead ingots
out on the mercuric water,
waves coil and uncoil,
back-slamming the sand.
Like specks of wind-blown paper
crested terns scatter in the spray,
their querulous cries pitched
across the rolling spume.
Starless and straining,
the sky gives way at its centre,
collapsing on this winter beach
like a black tarpaulin.