The Pier

He wished the promontory
would go on forever.
In his mind the wooden boards

stretched out into the ocean
to meet some vague vanishing point.
And that’s where he was,

the absolute part of him.
Disembodied.
Looking back on all that was,

what he’d become,
the pier a mere crustacean,
grey-white and beached,

the town and its cliffs
his Turneresque attempt
which convinced no one.

So what was it, from that viewpoint?
Nothing without distance and light.
Reaching the place

where the boards ran out,
he held onto the rusty rail,
seagulls all around

like wayward thoughts,
until she finally caught up
and gently took his arm.

© copyright David Francis Barker