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The cracked cocoon of
The sun
Leaks light
I am a stranger here
The self-
conscious creep of
The tide for company
And you on the beach
With your book
In your own world.
We walked from the station,
Hobbling,
You stopping to shake small
Stones from your open-
toed summer shoes
Me, impatient on blue,
We passed
Gap-toothed buildings
Offensively white
Stared stark in
The raw welt of the heat
The failed façade of
The Brighton Grand
Where you joke about booking
A room there
And I joke about
Being barred
After last time.
On the beach now
Just up past the pier,
That cripple’s hand
Emptily
Grasping the sea
Trying to claw back the covers
Trying to swaddle itself
But the blue is too heavy
To quick
And it comes up the beach,
Cooling your heels
In the over-
eager afternoon
Be a love, you say,
Go get us a Cornetto
And smiling, shielding
My eyes from the sun
I go back to the little ice-
cream place you favour.
The kiosk is last,
A frontier post
Past its brown-
flied shutters and
Play-billed walls
The restoration stops
The beach-front is bland then
To Saltdean and Rottingdean
Poor people, overdressed
Don’t seem to know its summer
Drink cider in big baggy sports coats
Beneath the pillars of an absent-
What? Bandstand?
-It is hard to say
The ivy has covered the
Most of it
Reclaiming it all
For a grave
When I get back to you
Your Cornetto has melted
You kiss me on the forearm
And say
Never mind.
Together, our toes touching
The frill of the water
We watch the horizon dilate
Already massive is stretches to
Accommodate more late-
coming birds
You take gin and juice
From you cool bag
I swim a little and see
There are weird thin fish in
The water
My grandfather would know what they were called
But he’s dead
So we cannot ask him
They are silvery thin
Like your earrings
The ones that your nana
Bought you for Christmas
You don’t believe me
So I show you
And you being you
You try to catch one
They’re too fast but
It is a good game.
Drunk, on yellowish beach towels,
Hearing the fair from
A mile down the stretch
I put my head on your shoulder now
And you smell of sun-cream and it
Is good
You find a penny
Deep down in the stones
Which in turn turns out
To be an arcade token
Oh, you say, well
They’re lucky too
And you put it in to
Your pocket…
------
The human race, the only race I know where everybody loses.
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nightlifeing
