The door into the garden is open
& I can feel the cooler, fresher air
brush against my face.
I can see the sea from where I sit:
a blue wedge between two houses.
From here, the ground slopes down
to the seafront. A car goes past.
It’s nine a.m., but it’s already warm.
A fly buzzes in, then out. Gulls cry
(this is the seaside after all).
People walk past talking, but
too far away for me to tell
exactly what it is they’re saying.
I catch a few words, Oh yes!
That’s just what you’d expect.
The air is still so still
you’d have to be up close to hear
the water lapping on the beach & yet
in the space between events
when you can hear nothing else
you can just make out
a faint undifferentiated sound
(not unlike the way you see
the sea all of a piece
between the houses),
the sort of sound you might hear
between stations on a radio.
I sit & listen: nothing else makes sense
right now. It’s either that
or open up a can of words.
.
Dominic Rivron
Picture Nick Victor
.