Poetry

The boat ride

We'd hired a boat
after the phone call in the old green Fiat
and the drive to the nearest tourist cove
off the highest cliff.

We saw nothing in that place,
but gulls and sand.

Your sun-scarred skin shook
and you held in the tears
but closed your ducts, dead,
and none of us spoke

for miles.

Harsh crashes numbed our frozen ears
and then we were ourselves again
for
a
moment

alone.

Charlotte Grainger