- Getaway
The flags are high in St. Peter Port:Liberation Day is Saturday,
someone told us, and the island is flushwith bunting. We’ve hiked the lane from town
and round the headlands, dipping to waterthen up then to water, and now we explore
a panoptical bunker that’s neck-deep in gorse,goosegrass and sorrel, the store room behind
fizzing with flies—so we turn and stare outat gulls on each craglet defending their nests
beside a tiny heartache covefringed with sea foam, a lilting yacht
pinned to its heart, bright mast tickinglike a metronome. And on
the deck of that boat a radio blurtsabout Mayweather/Pacquiao—the letdown it was,
and the earthquake in Asia (death toll six thousandand rising, as blocked mountain passes are cleared).
Someone clambers, hands ready, acrossthe foredeck, lifts like a jockey,
arches arms to a steeple, flops inand crawls round the turning stern. Your hand [End Page 540]
knocks mine, takes it, as we scan the scrollingsky (sun here; rain drowning Jersey)
and in-out-folding sea, stillbeside the gun mount set to swivel
in iron, here, a lifetime away. [End Page 541]
RORY WATERMAN’s debut collection, Tonight the Summer’s Over (Carcanet, 2013), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Prize. He lives in Nottingham, England, and works at Nottingham Trent University. He also writes critical prose for the Times Literary Supplement and other publications, has written two books on modern poetry, and co-edits New Walk, a magazine for poetry and the arts.