The Boat

Written 28/09/2017.

If you walk past the bandstand,
with its too-white paint
and curling iron detail,
an island on a manicured lawn,
you might take the riverside path.

Past the old inn,
the pubs, the tapas bar,
and the overfull car park
in miniature.

It drops down to the very edge
of the water,
lapping at the path’s side
at high tide
and leaving the trodden dirt
damp, as mud.

The traffic bridge towers over you
as the clifftop mansions look down,
and there is a great corpse.

I never learned her name.

She stands tall in filtered light,
red and rusted,
beached beneath the passing cars
like some unfortunate fish,
or better,
a whale.

A thousand times I’ve dreamt of it,
climbing that ancient hull
(Tetanus be damned!)
and exploring within.
There are no new worlds,
no colonial digs,
no great thievery or trespass left,
but there are old boats
and foreign cities
and forests far and wide.