I wanted to be a writer, but instead of sitting down
I strode out over the shingle ridge and saw the sun
coming up pink, pushing the thick clouds away,
and felt the cold wind forcing the morning’s door,
hurrying everything along, even the tiniest stones, which
rained down in little landslides no bigger than my hand.
I walked parallel to the water and spied a dark object ahead.
It was the foot-half of a boot – very large – the rest of it
bitten away; no threads or laces; each seam neatly
needled with deliberate holes; the stiff leather
blown open. I hovered by it; pushed it with my toe;
picked it up. Heavy: the wooden sole waterlogged.
I put it back down, picked it up again, and a man
sauntered towards me out of the dawn –
a tall man, with black hair and a beard (as all seamen had
upon a time) and a keen face. Then I started to move –
gripping the boot rim between my finger and thumb –
calmly, but without turning round, because I’d heard how
bones from the churchyard sometimes weather out of the cliff,
the way boots sometimes walk onto the beach.
Brisk morning, I thought, as I joggled the key in the lock.
The desk was exactly as I’d left it.
Now I write this: old-leather stink; stale sea;
relief of a footprint by my hand.
