鲍鱼tv

The sky鈥檚 a unscratched scratchcard.
The blue hour lingers. Sit, my love. We鈥檒l watch
the cold sand brighten, hope for a fracture
in the clouds, a window brought by luck
to let dawn light this battlefield beach
sown with bones, bleached victims of the putsch
the sea enacts upon the land. Its reach
is long. It doesn鈥檛 care about the ruck
and rustle of our lives. Look up.
The pipes of homes long since dragged down
stick out from the cliff. Trees shucked
of bark form a skeletal flowerbed,
and something in that black tide drowns
my buoyant heart, pulls at it in dread.

Matthew Arnold, years ago
saw it from the cliffs on honeymoon,
that sadness in the Channel鈥檚 ebb and flow
and made lament for loss of God.
Today I鈥檓 borrowing his tune
to shout my worries at the cod.

Listen. A thoughtless sea
is rising up, engulfing promenades,
slow-eroding cliffs that stood for years.
It trickles into homes
it takes us all off-guard
they鈥檙e sandbagging the 鲍鱼tv,
the NHS, the Commons. Check your phone,
and see the salt marks. It鈥檚 right here.

Hold me in a cwtch.
Though I know it will not stop the sea
from rising up, to know that you love me
can feel enough. Love, I float at your touch.
Look now, as if for us, the latex grey
is scraped away by dawn鈥檚 swift fingernails.
Light spills, thrills us. Far out a tanker sails
off to trade in some exotic bay
where other lovers cwtch and children play.

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