POEM TITLE
Reverse Comfort
POEM
Should I seek solace in darkness on the water,
A well-named settlement with a century of souls
Bides its time on the Firth of Forth -
‘Blackness on Sea’, not a painting title, no,
But a pier-and-castle hamlet;
And if Burns holed up here, well,
It’s surely good enough for me, or for anyone.
“The world is your oyster”, my parents said to me.
And though I found that not to be true, not in my case anyway,
The phrase at least lent reverse comfort
In times when I’ve retreated, sought sanctuary
In smallness, insignificance and shadow.
The oyster, I told myself, is my world,
And what’s more, I’ll wear an armour, crustacean-like,
Around my little heart that beats too strong,
And so the Lobster Pot,
Cheerful in yellow and blue like childhood sun and sea,
Seems apt for a salty licking of grown-up wounds
As the blackness on the sea rises (for it will)
And the ghosts of the oysters crumble
Into new sand for brave new shores.
Then I will break open my barnacled basket,
Being one with the tide and the depths,
Refreshed from my rest at the end of the world,
Dangling my legs off the end of the pier,
Wearing my bones on the outside
And my heart, a pearl, within.