Afterword
I take off my specs
and the sea breaks to pieces
of brilliant glass,
each an electric pulse,
each a prism for the sun.
Cracking open a can of Estrella,
I take up my pen like Byron in Sintra,
or Ovid in Constanta,
happy with the heat, the fish oil,
and the homage of innumerable fans
back home in the sleet.
Why do I think of the Solway then,
that miserable excuse for a sea,
with its rocks nudging out of the silt
like knees in a bath?
Stone upon stone I ignite a light
of a different sort, in memory,
pale on the gorse, hot in the heart.
