Lynne Rees
Lines of Least Resistance
Cape Cornwall, 1998
This morning the world’s a white rush -
windows drip with salt, sea seeps through cracks
in the ill-fitting sash. A riot of wind rattles the house.
From the first floor, I follow the paths of gulls
unchanged by the wind’s twist; they use its back
to rise - an unnoticeable flex of feather, wing,
and they soar bitten granite, a seething mass
of foam. Out at sea, waves ignore the rage
around the cove and form a country of their own,
long running lines of surf over deep water.
And now on the path below, a man determined,
after he’s driven down the narrow switch-back hill,
to see the Cape, walk to its furthest tip.
His shoulders are hunched against the blow, head
thrust forward, hands clenched in pockets, while
his girls are jumping, twirling, arms stretched out,
unfastened red anoraks bulging like sails.
I shake back bolts, open a door to the sea.
Page(s) 55
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