Erosion
No one had told her that hell
Could come before death:
The horizon you tire of reaching,
That thin line, a shell;
The sound of your own breathing
Like the incessant waves on the beach.
A hundred miles from the sea,
Mrs Smith stands adrift,
Feels the swell buoy her up,
Her stomach shift.
Coffee spills from her coffee cup;
The fall to the floor an eternity.
Abandoned now, and stranded
Amongst the dead husband’s chattels,
She shakes the small round pills
From the smoked-glass bottle
That comes with the strained
Smiles of her doctor.
They spill
Into the cracked vessel
Of her palm.
She licks
Them up like the cat
Lapping at its milk.
Her rooms float and fill
With fog and she feels
Her way through them,
Her vision dim.
Her cat mews, rubs her legs,
Calling her from shipwreck.
When the mist swirls,
She lies upon the sofa,
Under a thin checked picnic
Blanket, in a soft cloud of coma,
Staring at nothing, staring;
The cat pads and curls
At her feet, purring, purring.
Run aground.
There’s a line-up on the mantelpiece –
Strangers with Identikit features,
Assembled into a puzzle of faces,
Who seem shifty and restless,
Peering through the dirty windows
Of their unhappiness,
Though one photo on the shelf
Holds her life in its frame -
A memory and a mirror -
And the faces seem more the same:
Each day bringing them nearer,
Pushing her from the shore of herself.
She remembers the day
As if it were yesterday;
Though yesterday has gone,
Lost in days of repetition,
Hour stacked on stale hour,
Year after year turning sour,
Until far enough back
The clouds break,
And the minutes, fresh,
Sparkle so she can count each one.
She feels the press of his flesh
On her fingers,
Senses the urgent tone,
How the seconds linger,
How each and every stone
On the beach behind shines;
The breaking of the waves
Stalled.
She recalls:
The borrowed car,
The promising early sun,
The lack of traffic,
The walk along the prom,
Shivering under the picnic blanket,
Their limbs knotting them into one.
Then the seaweed smell of decay.
Beyond that moment
She can only stumble
And then fall
Into the jumbled present;
And the waves tumble,
And sprawl.
The past is the ocean
Coming in at hide tide,
Slowly stealing years –
Her island’s inevitable erosion:
Headlands crumble and slide,
Coastline disappears.
She lifts her eyes from the picture
To the horizon’s distant glow;
Ssh, ssh the waves whisper
As the water runs over her toes.
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