Down the long causeway to a mid-morning’s rest.
In the absence of cyclists and buses,
the wind rises to meet him where it funnels, narrow,
off the red roofs below, feeding out behind him,
wide again over the harbor beyond.
Ten minutes more on foot,
time neither well nor ill spent,
as much as nervous cut-off or persuasive pause,
a piece of moveable type, a semi-colon maybe
or a lower case ‘l’, down the bare white stone
of the causeway in search of its particular nest.
The part time shopgirl was breathless with the promise
of delivery and his forger’s pen is fresh-nibbed
and plump with ink,
his fingers’ repertoire of signatures overstocked
to such richness that his own name
might spill unchecked and fine as fraud.