Dover

On the edge of a moth bite, this town is still

stitches loosening one by one. 

A garment — cloth once more. 

A sea ( a pool ) of only 

what is visible from shore 

must push and pull. 

That sea must come and night must go.

Erosion. Not eroded.

Tuesdays are spoon fed, prepared for. 

Then comes Wednesday, a light drizzle, a new tide.

Erosion. 

Sea still licks. Salt still ruptures — eroding. 

And the people, 

when the ticket is run through, 

when the conductor beckons, 

when hotels spatter the landscape like 

hay bales in Canterbury, miles out, 

from the port ( the mouth, the heart, the lungs ), 

they keep coming yet they know they must go. 

And the night, 

it comes once more and day again. 

Expectantly, the cliffs above await, still

in potential energy. 

Unfixable, the sea does stay with me. Still, 

you are down by the beach 

skipping stones fastened from pummeled seaglass. 

Wine bottles, kaleidoscopic 

once more.

Buildings stand as rows of teeth. 

We grow in, coated in salt. 

Bleached and frayed. 

The moon replaces the sun 

( dark is light ). We grow loose,

suspended in motion. 

I want to banish us here. You, here. 

But light darkens. Pubs grow cold. 

The sailor plays the last note on his guitar. 

The highway laments. Traffic beckons. 

Trains howl. Thunder rolls. 

The sea shrinks. The town grows bitesize. 

The conductor paces. 

The moon is but a pinhead.

Stars become threaded — stitches into silk. 

We pull away,  the human tide.

In the center of a moth bite, this city is agitated,

fraying has spread like a river. 

Nontidal — a garment of needle holes.

Yet, at times, when day breaks just right

and light milkens, I can still see you. 

In my mind’s eye, you.

And the ocean is so slow. 

And everything is in its rightful place

and London grows soft, and still 

we are in Dover.