Seascape

It’s just like me to tell you that I have to go
away - for work - before driving to the coast.
But I forget now why the sea is beautiful.
It’s a bone-bruise swelling beneath the skin
of the horizon, as far as I can see.
Water cackles and claws the shingle,
paws at the sand while the land plays dead.
Footsteps sound like children pushed
on to marble floors without knowing how
to protect their faces. I would never
do anything so openly cruel. I make promises
like skimming stones: however much I hope
they’ll carry, however seamless
and smooth, despite their shine and the spin
I put on them each time I whip my arm
at the broad ocean, they lurch
on the surface and sink into breakers.
And in this weather, in these times, it’s hard
to imagine the tide not rising. It’s hard
to make anything but boulderous promises,
throwing mountains at the sea while retreating
deeper inland. Look. The sky is a rag in the sky.
The cold inside it is bottomless.
And the sea has turned the colour of lint
snagged beneath fingertips. My pockets
are empty. I’ve thrown every stone on the beach.

James Nixon teaches at Arden University and is completing doctoral research into the legacy of Arthur Rimbaud and hauntological poetics at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a former Royal Holloway Emerging Writer Fellow, a Writer-in-Residence at Cove Park, and a Writer-in-Residence at Phytology, Bethnal Green.