Lune (excerpt)
Two views on intimacy:
every cloud is wet;
the ocean rains dead things.
And still some of us can’t see
even when we’ve plunged under the surface. Romance
is when one has learnt to disappear – like phosphorous
in still waters,
or oxygen from the deep.
This isn’t Hollywood.
We can only guess what’ll happen next.
Yesterday she told me
she knew as much about love
as the tourist understands
the sea they swim in.
A man in a wet suit waded into the mud.
He might have been from the Environment Agency.
Or the power station.
We could hear his squeaky gasps against the cold
shorter, it seemed, the further he went.
We didn’t shout after him, to warn him
of currents, radioactivity, or channels,
just breathed in, and out
the two of us in time.
He was muscular, like a wind-surfer.
I knew what she was thinking,
standing next to me, chewing her flaky nails. Thinking
she can walk away,
keep herself and any man, any thing, separate.
But it’s always too late for that.
Sarah Hymas lives on Morecambe Bay, England. Her writing has appeared in print, multimedia exhibits, site-specific audios, dance videos, lyrics, pyrotechnical installations, on stage and as an improvised opera. The poem Lune was made as a small concertina pamphlet, which was a runner-up in the Saboteur Awards 2013. More details here.
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