Sea Changes

The odd warm winds keep up. The sea's
wrinkling with red weed. It weaves through the water
where slime hardens to stone. This jetty's
just frayed ropes and rotten planks, warty

with limpets now. Half sunk, a waterlogged
dory's choked up on a frayed tether.
The low sun turns distance to fogged
film, sky simmering. The weather's

so weird these past months. The sea
thickens nightly to a muscled slime, twitches
with the low flap of leather wings. At dawn, bees
swarm over drift-wood and drown. Smith's bitch

ate her litter. Nights I swat bugs, scan the heavens
for meanings. Old Ma Jones flicks cards. Paul
and the others drink. I'd leave, but Stevens
says there'll be work in the Fall.

I don't know why I feel so bruised.
Migratory birds flit like erratic needles.
Strange winds buffet their plumage.
They take off, and land again, confused.

Copyright © 2003 Cliff Forshaw All rights reserved
from The Pterodactyl's Wing: Welsh World Poetry, edited by Richard Gwyn
Parthian Books /Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission