Stoke

Howling,
whips the wind
and cuts the legs
thick as trunks of trees, licks with salt,
a beating through harrowing sea,
kisses bones in broken spaces,
hollows out the mind with a curved edge.
She sees
the night by light of frigate
or full moon, echoing truths
that slice through the divide between the Island
and the Motherland.

This jurassic coast sharpens tales upon the madding froth
as roaring comes the tempest 'neath,
still upon the glassy top
and dressed in gifts
from beds of old, black boils and tendrils of flesh.

We leave the escape and quivering scramble back,
wrecked and redeemed on sand and stone, humble, enduring redress and address
reality as it is now known. The wind,
she howls
and whips the legs,
thick as trunks of trees.
The secrets only the determined know
stretched thinly along her breeze.