By KELWYN SOLE
Don’t trust any harbour. Already
those reflections that match each boat
turn restless, yearn to fracture:
each wave beyond the quay dishevels.
I who have no instinct for bad weather
—scudding wind, nor gale—turn
to watch a late evening ditching sun
that gasps lunges out to drown
in tides of creels lost, and plastic bottles.
You contrive strong, dark fingers
through your hair. Time to head home:
beside you there’s me and a nervous sea
bereft of the small white globes of gulls
now trying to outrun dark. A door shuts.
We’ll pass our time in tepid rooms
that dissemble light: making dinner
then making love till we lie
in tandem, fork to spoon. Who
cannot guess which one of us
will take their sleepless turn tonight
to part the curtains, start, to see
unblinking stars begin to swarm
suddenly implacable as bees
above the black void that was sea.
Kelwyn Sole is professor of English literature at the University of Cape Town and guest-editor for Issue 04.
