Limestone

cliffs chalked by the Atlantic

hung by the blind feeling of limestone

kilted by beds of kelp waist-deep in sea pools

fallen to converse with selkies

 

it was this in his eyes

me looking in

I’d be lost there, come up

for air, a handful of seconds

were really years

till his skies frosted

and all the nodding he did

to keep time with my tales

became all he did

and made me blink

just long enough

to smell the rime blue of mine

turn the green of fallow years

 

and here am I

a thousand thousand miles from what was

yet scarfed by the odd 3am skulking

still scrabbling in a box of ready rolled reasons

when we

would not breathe water

one for the other

was reason enough

Image and poetry Alison Boyd © 2013.