The sun is blind
The old man said
Steps as elusive as wet clay
Milk blue opals in his eyes
Arm outstretched for leverage
In a mantis feeble invocation
The sky a fleck of spit
The road across the cliffs
A muddy chalk
Suitable for marking games
Of war and hopscotch
Casting stones
One knee bent
The trench foundation deep
In a kind of homage
That winter
We did not eat ice-cream
Thought how you wore
A cardigan like rope
Though really it was unseasonably mild
As late spring dancing
One and two and three and four
The pebble skipping
As if this were
A calm still lake
And not another
Stuttered evening’s fall
Still, a hand that reaches out
Measures time
Quite differently to the straightened mouth
Of discomfited laughter
