Liverpool sunset
Drawn, as one always is, towards the waterfront –
unseen, but making the sky more generous
in that direction, an opal bowl spilling
the day's late gold – they sought the river.
Not hearing yet the waves' soft slap on the dock
but still the ear bones vibrate to the tink-tink
of shrouds and the bumping, like tired children,
of ghost hulls nudging the quay.
And salt air on the tongue etches the heart
– in blue like a sailor's forearm – go west,
and a rope strong enough to heave the ocean
across the planet's back coils in the gut.
He had tucked continents into his pockets,
hills and cities and people, wound click after click
onto 35 millimetre, letters from women
between the sheets of his journal.
But the north, its grit, seemed in her gift,
this pilgrimage required her mediation,
though she had never entered either football ground
or been old enough to hear the Beatles live.
Light folded inward, the broad ways drained of hubbub;
he striding, she listening for stones' afterthoughts,
they brushed the granite hips of chained colossi, gods
propitiated by cotton, sugar, and bananas.
Then further, out of step, past shuttered wharfs,
fluttering with ragged fly-posters cut off
mid-sentence,
blank and forgetful of the engine-room bass,
or the white flash of sail in the distance.
And as the sky turned rose-quartz, cobalt,
and countless starlings sprayed across
like iron filings
pulled to an invisible pole, she saw that
he was transient
and she, one step from steerage, just as temporary.
Page(s) 8
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