Stranger Still

Photograph by Joel Wynn Rees
Photograph by Joel Wynn Rees

After the beached whale

we missed the boat home

found ourselves lost

at sea.

 

We drank to cover the silences

ears to shells

imagining whispers.

 

After the whale,

we discovered some worn magic

in washed-up things

lonely bottles

solitary shoes

 

each other.

 

Closeness

was equal to distance, more or less

and we drifted together

drawn by soundless tides.

 

After the whale

we wandered through

a forgotten holiday resort

 

my bare feet

crab-stepping the broken glass

collecting fragments –

a swimming pool, empty

a mango tree,

full of bats.

 

After the whale,

the day filled with darkness

and windows became eyes,

we felt

watched by ghosts.

 

We asked questions of the sky –
but the stars said nothing
as always.

And the moon cast nets of light

through the palms and

across the dunes to where

 

the whale bled out

 

just another body

in the shallows of the night.