Selwyn Veater
In real time
A white footprint in the sky; day and night
bending into each other, over the sea
September warmth drifts slowly away,
shuddering into watery air,
catching, for once, the exact moment
when summer tangled into autumn.
Earlier we'd taken a boat, drifted
out to that curious patch of sea-mist.
Caved in white silence, without watches,
we dismantled time. It humoured us for once,
though you still fretted at the loss of childhood.
Did you guard the past just to control
how time released deep urgencies in you?
We talked until words whispered into dusk
as, sharing hands, we walked the high tide's
salt-line; its litter and dry seaweed
seemed less ugly in the frowning dark.
I felt the points of breezes blowing up;
scribbling footnotes in your hair.
You were too burnt out to notice the first gleams
of moonlight on water, stars in rock pools.
I sensed your soft laugh tiring to a smile,
yet missed the precise moment
when you finally turned and left me.
You crawled into the car, and slept.
bending into each other, over the sea
September warmth drifts slowly away,
shuddering into watery air,
catching, for once, the exact moment
when summer tangled into autumn.
Earlier we'd taken a boat, drifted
out to that curious patch of sea-mist.
Caved in white silence, without watches,
we dismantled time. It humoured us for once,
though you still fretted at the loss of childhood.
Did you guard the past just to control
how time released deep urgencies in you?
We talked until words whispered into dusk
as, sharing hands, we walked the high tide's
salt-line; its litter and dry seaweed
seemed less ugly in the frowning dark.
I felt the points of breezes blowing up;
scribbling footnotes in your hair.
You were too burnt out to notice the first gleams
of moonlight on water, stars in rock pools.
I sensed your soft laugh tiring to a smile,
yet missed the precise moment
when you finally turned and left me.
You crawled into the car, and slept.
Selwyn Veater was born in Wales but has lived most of his life in Brighton where he worked as the City's Head Postmaster and where his interest in the sea developed naturally. He has had poems published in Envoi, Poetry Monthly, Swansea Review.
Page(s) 15
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