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September 3, 1939. Early evening
and the sea soughs, sways
- a sketchbook washing calm,
its ribs carrying the meticulous rainy births -
portraits from her many lives.

 

She has always loved the coastline,
come back to it, the waves' fringed-grip -
daily swimming the Channel - testing herself
against its heave and push.
Ahead, Dover's scribbly-white cliffs,
and beyond, the hills of Tenby -
its beach's curve, her childhood's
patch of sand. She has tested this sea's glass

 

and painted herself into its mirror
like a cloud passing over. She has more
interiors to match and place, place and match
as again she gives herself to the water -
its moody mountains surging,
pacing her - the archetypal swimmer
planing darkness, with the coast
clearing and Paris-Meudon behind her.

Published in Mslexia, No.8, Winter/Spring, 2001