I walk beside a pond near a willow tree.
We’ve come to this seaside town
for a rest. He’s tired; I’ve been sick.
 
At our hotel I go down to swim.
In the locker-room a child is exclaiming
to her mother, “It smells like summer here!”
 
Whiffs of chlorine hang in warm air
and a memory of the taste of cucumber
vodka lingers on my lips, then slips away.
 
I am crying for a loss
I cannot name. My lover is never mine
for long. How quickly he turns away.
 
Perhaps he has the same longing—a longing
like trying to hold endless summer against
the cold darkness pressing at a windowpane.
 
We thought a trip to the shore would
do us good, but I am even lonelier
here and he more distant still.
 
He is so much like a forest
I wandered into and now,
cannot find my way.
                        

In Torquay the esplanade stretches 
around the curving seafront like an arm 
embracing water. We booked into 
the Grand Hotel and Spa, an ancient 
bit of elegance from days gone by. 
 
Dame Agatha Christie used to dine here 
in its heyday. It’s easy to imagine that 
we are living in those times of her youth. 
Not much has changed in the hotel, though 
it’s grown a bit seedy in a pleasant way. 
 
The esplanade is across the street, which
our balcony overlooks. Mornings we sit 
on the long broad stairs that lead down
from the esplanade to water’s edge. Soft waves 
wash up and sink back down like little cascading 
waterfalls. Gulls careen overhead. They squeal 
and bark. The townsfolks don’t like them
and think they are a nuisance for tourists 
so they hired a falconer to kill gulls. 
 
We talk with the falconer. He’s not having 
much luck he says. His falcon is young 
and hasn’t caught on yet. We watch him 
set his bird off again and again. Seagulls 
continue to squeal as they swoop and dive. 
I like gulls, myself. Don’t hurt them, I pray 
silently to the falcon sitting on his master’s 
wrist. Don’t learn to kill. He listens 
with his bright onyx eyes fixed on me.