Starlings Flit from Lobster Pots

Starlings flit from lobster pots
The harbour – a nest
Of buoys and nets –
A breath –
To the beat of boats
And wings –
Sun and sea sing –
Salt clear notes – blue
Chasing dawn’s dissolving hue –
Hulls bead and dimple dew
Over paint that flakes in scales –
While rigging quivers for sails –
Fishermen crouch – hunch –
Gravel crunch –
Releasing the rattle roll of garage doors –
To workshop wood silence and open tool draws –
They crack – stack empty crates
Next to full white tubs of bate –
Scattering a flutter of shadows in their wake –
Starlings flit from lobster pots –
A school of fish that shimmers – sways –
Through the creasing tide of water’s day –

Overripe

In chest – bruised fruit
-severed – stooped-
Aching shapelessness
To rise ‘round blind touch –
Blighted bitter by time’s tread –
Mottled by words unsaid –
In chest – bruised fruit –
Bowed branch spine
As I pine because
You were never mine –
never mine – never mine
Never mind