Today sunlight is a damp thing,
skin peeled back from scalloped waves.
The Atlantic bares its teeth
as tide cowers beneath mussel-scrimmed sand,
bits of fractured opal showing in the jawline.
From beneath the steel blue awning
we can hear the pier’s timbers mewl with each heave
as the structure leans from light.
It is dusk. She won’t see another summer.
When I shuffle her to the beach house,
even the sky’s tired omens persist:
Signal flares flicker into light,
expose vees of seagulls against the sky’s drop-cloth.
They fizzle for a moment,
then snuff out like sparks in oil.
Photo by Andy
Your work grows as you do, Jon, mature and vivid, full of knowing. Great stuff!
Steve
A beautiful poem and tribute
It doesn’t get better than this:
“The Atlantic bares its teeth
as tide cowers beneath mussel-scrimmed sand,
bits of fractured opal showing in the jawline.”
This makes me want to write poetry again.