The wind beats my cheeks and blows back my hair as I stand on the breakwater gazing out to sea.
sentry I
wind: pummels cheeks
blows hair, unkempt, across face
catching eye, distracting not
as I search the scudding clouds
and foaming waves,
a swirl of whiteness, green and grey,
the cormorant and black guillemot
patrol their beat, cry for my attention,
ignore me and plunge
for their cold fish supper.
after five hundred years of watching
a lone sail sets its course
and now the fishing boats return
men in industrial overalls
Foillan Beg, Lenague, Coral Strand 2nd
Genesis of Peel, Aleena,
stocky, thick set queenie-catching bottom-dredgers,
The Manx Cat, a “Sutton work boat out of Peel”
with two deck hands and a cargo of crabs
bright red buoys contrast with navy blue,
a swath of rust pours down the side,
dirty green nylon nets hang down.
oily sheen on the water.
