Retirement options for tube trains, #7, Foulness Island

The mud bubbles

beneath the couplings

on an Autumn ebb-tide

as the North Sea rolls out 

flat and silver

like virgin tin foil.

In fact, this coach in sinking:

the algae-d sleepers

shouldering the weight 

of the District Line chassis

are tilting into the creek,

and the double set of doors

(part-open)

are oozing in water

glazed with the marble-like

scum of cockle spores.

On the floor is a sleeping bag, 

discoloured and mottled

like dead flesh. Not a

tramp’s, but a retired architect’s, 

who recently lost his wife,

and spent an equinox out here

with the lonely reeds

willing her face in the green flash

that, legend has it,

accompanies the sun’s departure 

under the horizon’s guillotine,

while the wind turbines

obey the air, huddled 

in their whirring white battalions.