Lea Mount

The fir tree frozen by the early sun,
the iron fence above the chewed-up cliff
where I, school-blazered, stood that dawn
and watched her swim, already further off
than any friend of ours had ever gone.

I saw her heading out, too far from me,
towards the last trace of a fading moon,
the tide so high the submerged rocks were sheathed,
her costume bluer than the morning, soon
hard to distinguish from the April sea.


The Woods

A whirl of trees, the urgent second goes,
a crack of branches in the cool half-dark,
remote the dazzle of the sun on bark,
        nutshells and mud on loosened clothes.
...