The pier

 

(I)

Mussels crooning

waiting inside their clenched existence

for a flowering

in the darkness

where the giant squid waits

 

some nights I feel the faint brush

of the tentacle traversing the heel

of my right foot – is that the foot

by which I was held

dipped into the family’s gene pool

and sent then

into history?

 

(II)

The gaps terrified me.

The gaps between the planks.

The planks so worn by water and wind

that I must slip between.

 

Walking I hear the waves

calling

trying to clutch and carry me down.

 

I feel the eyes of an unmet beloved –

if I look back will the future be lost?

 

(III)

At the end

hard against the rail, fingers

holding as if a shield against the water’s might,

watching the distant ocean;

hear how it calls to the sun,

jealous, eager to extinguish the light.

The sun bows low

and always escapes.

 

In the darkness walking back

I can see the tent lights in the distance

but between the planks

in the gaps of the unknown

I feel the giant squid’s tentacles…

If I stop

I will remain as if in a stone chair

and no one will rescue me.

 

(IV)

The salt everywhere,

the foam a delight.

Old fishermen cut lines and bait

with knives sharper than history.

 

I have no patience,

should not venture out

on this strand of make-believe;

already I can feel the tentacles…

 

It is the unknown that haunts the child

and being a child

all is unknown.

 

Even now when I sense the pier,

hear the waves

or the tinkling of black mussel…

imagine deaths – a civil war of deaths

and loss – a Tsunami of loss

and catastrophe – a hurricane of catastrophe

and I am prepared for what comes;

that she leaves me

that the house is repossessed

that the job ends.

 

 

A known disaster

even if it has a thousand sprouting heads

is not as bad

as the unknown.