Fishguard 1970 (revisited*)

When the rain drove us
from damp canvas to backroads,
where the dull pull of the wipers
lulled us back to sleep,
while parents ought sanctuary
in Woolworths, bookshops, Milk Bars,
as we washed up at the Lower Quay,
to cross the gunnels of a mackerel boat,
that cut into the grey bay,
through the soft gap between sea and sky,
the only brightness feathers
cast out to the choppy swell,
until we pulled out those strips of sliver
lined with turquoise twisting deep in the hull,
where the writhing left us caught between
a hunter’s urge and the will to set
all that’s wild free.


*An earlier version of this poem appeared on the blog in 2006.