Crab Fishing

Heavy waves at the harbour

chanted old scriptures –

salt-worn psalms on the tide.

We wandered by rock pools

and storm-black bays.

Rain chased us through

Ward Park, High Street,

all the way down to

Eisenhower Pier,

fishing for crabs and limpets

gripping the blue green

of the Irish Sea.

Your identical breaths

like small ripples,

spreading across the

cliffed shore.

Sea-clay, stonecrop,

coastal thrift, the slow

hand writing of breath.

Grey gulls gurned at

a banjaxed sky.

Someone cried

of thunder, high tide.

And the sea answered,

clean and baltic.

Wind turning sharp like a prayer

pelting down on the valley of the angels.

Your four palms cupped rain

like floundered magic,

while the deep rolled

lunar, monastic.

As the tide kept on singing,

I could hear darkness crack.