The beach magician’s vanished, gone home.
Now it’s my sleeping cousins’ turn
to disappear.
Out of the creaking depths
of old deckchairs their teenage spirits rise,
drift down to the shore.
The mackerel are in.
Helen’s in blue, Cat in her yellow dress.
The harbour’s a pond, the moored boats
nailed to their reflections.
Cat waves
to the boy on the quay who sits in the nets
by the lobster pots, in the amber sun,
who will soon become their castaway,
who can still see their silhouettes
in the glassy shallows.
