(in memoriam Lynette Roberts, 1909-1995)
Found rough and polished pell
mell on the skirt of wreckage,
any action slow as blunder
in the wee hours’ ice, the wind
impairing the channel so that
watching it was watching velvet
darkening, theater-wide and riding
the quail as if touched, pummeled
from the other side. High tide
arrived, departed, carried back out
what was slow to catch the eye.
First dibs and losers weepers
and a fist trumped by a blade,
the mere threat of it pricking
shadows to their back-down,
switching interest like hyenas fresh
to the collision and its radius.
Convoy caught bobbing the fly-
swatter’s lane, the passing shark
away and iris-addled when the
sea went up in flames, luxury
of tracers planeing the prayer-
wall. Mist danced the radio waves,
the static accountant out of
inky digits, rounding the tally up.
The pub news is cod and ersatz
buttery peas, the Andrews Sisters
triple-teaming a wah-wah reed-
washed buckaroo, and what’s this
about Leningrad open at last?
Oh to be a child, oh to be
a scooter-siphoning son of the
black market, swarthy happy homegrown.
Dank with drowned tawdry,
banned from the hammering mint.
The holidays were but a whimper
of their former selves, with
fairy-lights and cream cakes
locked away as dream.
The doctrine of the evening
laid its frail cheat along
the shining tap-watered street.
A redhead stood watch for
con and law and the kiosk
empty, postered with acronyms
and gentle reminders not to
be a fool when all the sea
was listening in. A handkerchief,
a rose, a cartridge case.
Best of three for a cherry’s song.