The Sailing

The Sailing

This is a cold town.
Trinket shops on the front dark for the winter,
Lemons lined up in the shuttered penny arcade.
A gull glides fixed in the jade ice of the harbour
And the custom-house flag is starred with frost.
The ship lingers, a high steel house, a dream,
Warm beat of turbines beneath the waterline.
Clothed to the chin, hunched beneath caps,
Ship's officers cool their words on the quay.

This is a cold hour.
Day leaves by sea, a trail of light fading away.
The bow swings, cracks free; a shape at the rail
Coughs over a cigarette. The bar door breathes
The bell of glass on glass, the dealing of plates.
Soon the name across the stern is gone, the port
Of origin a smear of grey. Waves slap the wall
As the last swells of wake touch home and calm.
We look on, stamp the ground, turn back on ourselves.