That sea is always unsteady with thoughts,
polluted by the pram covers carried out
into tracks of moonlight
borne towards lit rooms beyond the horizon
memories of loved kitchens
where the dead kinsfolk sit down to a table
distorted in a childhood's inky sketchbook,
washed in black, bound in black.
To have left a mother suffering far inland,
to have sensed the pram covers heaving away from
the moonlight track and faces sinking like flat-fish
under a sea peopled wilh receding lights
governed by smoky stars
and then to have seen
a modern Cariclea in the dress of Grecian white
a handbag strap as if of the quiver of arrows
walk down the scudding ferry deck
entering risks of piracy in a classic romance,
this, in another poem the cause of melancholy.
But here the sea is not integral with the writing
and keeps bearing the lights and memories away.
At moments of crisis,
lhe voyager sways from the rail towards her:
you won't quile find the classic mood in him or her.
