Lifeboat

LIFEBOAT

I imagined you
would save me
in the lifeboat
of your arms

and take me
to your cosy
little cottage
of fire and shells,

we could lie
in every morning
ignoring
the alarms

and never see
the workers
as they drive
to prison cells.

I knew that
you would see
beyond my shabby
outer self

and tears came
like boulders -
the harbour wall
cracking;

it had seemed
that we
were just left
on the shelf,

pretending
that nothing
could ever be
lacking.

We listened
to the sea,
lying naked
by the flame

and I was happy
to drown in
fathomless
eyes,

we turned
our two-backed
beast, on fortune
and fame

believing
their world
was nothing, but
lies.


Sign, in our nearby town of Yarm