In came the gulls;

the slate wings, surfing capers,

lobster snatchers, snapping,

baying.

He gripped the rock, batting, curses grizzled,

and slopped his cigarette.

“Come in” he spat, frizzes of beard gone green.

The dark sky merged with the coast, twirled compasses

sick,

and he bashed his torch on the slick jutting knives;

made hysterical light.

 

The water was thick.

She kept her men tight; brindled with brine and sweat,

pawing the rope and wide eyed.

Her arms caught them on either side;

stung and raw and their fingers slipped.

She tossed them in the air like eels,

tugged their clothes and jaws back, straight shapes of rain -

bared their teeth, rolling wheels into the wind.

 

“Come in,” He growled, “Come in!”

A flashbulb cardiac, the white fit -

it was coming, it was coming.

 

She tipped her tail; coarse calls,

crowded dark colours, pluming charcoal soup.

Palms plucked her whispering hair

and the sky and the sea filled black.

 

They sloped the deck, lungs bursting -

iron, will, push -

and into the angel light,  leant.

Into the angel light – men!

 

He ran the rocks and wailed,

his laughter salted, an angler fish grin;

fluorescent devil comb teeth, cut ecstatic,

 

and down, down they came in...

 

 when the wind broke;

 the vertebrae and vertebrae,

 the meteorites snapping, splints, feathers sucked,

 the throat of the gale, wood, anchors, and hail,

 

 and she kissed every one of them -

their ruby souls; silken, shiny strips in the light,

seal meat ribbons

 strewn on the shore,

 

and they kissed their wives,

salt mad.

 

Nothing escapes scavengers.

He dragged his lobster pot

through their brow’s gold,

and blew the lantern out.