Poem: Bair Island

Why eulogize
that great burnt plate,
hoary grey grasses
petrified with firework ash?
A nightmare of salt
and iodine, its gullies flash
in rust and ochre,
crystalline fur
like the pelt on a dried cat.
And the smell—
somewhere between
a lobster pot
and dead impatiens,
a wire brush in the mouth.

Next year they’ll break the dikes
and let the fish return.
How strange to mourn
this scarry land we walked
so many Sundays
when we loved
and gulped the brave air in,
our bootsoles marking
the old sea floor,
the new sea floor.





Posted for DVerse Poets’ Pub
Open Link Night #60
Hello, DVerse poets!