Ian Caws
Saltmarsh
Everything disintegrates
In the heat except these shore crabs,
Tossed like children’s badges on the swept mud,
And where there is shadow, it floats,
A ragged shirt over the ribs
Of silt. I stood on this path once, near mad
With cold, and wind would not let me
Pass, flexing like a metal sheet
And pushing me back to the road. Today
It’s dead crabs keep me company
And there’s no breeze at all to set
The liquid horizon. And if I die
Today, where there is space round me
And I don’t fit, and in this place
Which has no end, I would prefer my death
To be with the crabs, carelessly
Scattered, random as sea asters
Or the flight of the redshank, maybe worth
Exactly what makes them or me
Part of this. I’m too close to cool
Water even to notice the heat sting
Me and too far away to see
The sails of old Halnaker Mill
Still multiplying nothing with nothing.
Page(s) 8
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