SUNSET BEACH REVISITED
I imagined sandpipers ignoring us
even if footsteps retained an outline
to plot our walking together, soon
enough erased by the inevitable waves.
Together for a change – even then
the reality of it being odd, holding
hands across a divide, still trying now
to conceptualise as a father instead of
ride the memory of a moment. Driftwood
tangled roots wash up here too, forged
together against design, and calling it
Art says it all in a hope of creativity.
Was it meant to be? Clearly not, as what
still is affirms the myth of intimacy.
ON OUR OWN
We arrived on our own without family and
without friends, just the two of us, and not
to be private or romantic, necessarily, so
not not to be either of these, but when we
entered the lodge our dining table had been
laid for six people with elaborate place
settings of designer plates and bowls, the
wine glasses ready too – even all three of the
bedrooms had six bath towels neatly placed
with individual soaps put in fancy-folded
smaller ones for display – and being a couple
obviously means you are not alone, but can
be, and the owners of the place we had rented
might have checked who was coming, just
in case.
Bio: Mike Ferguson is retired English teacher and an American resident in the UK. He has poetry in a range of small magazines as well as educational publications, mainly about the teaching of writing.
Wild Goose Poetry Review 