You Are Standing At The Lonely Pier Of My Death Poem by Louise Martin

the sky is not how you want it to be,
and you are looking through splintered
wood beneath your feet. Sand-spray is leaping
and you hold on to the cold railing.

I was here with you once
it was a sunny day
our eyes were squinting
and we were laughing about nothing -

It was like this: we would laugh and cry
in the same moment;
somehow your hands cried too,
they moved with your tears

and I held them, my two hands,
your two hands - our palms climbing
on each other, like when we made love.
And now your hands hold a cold railing -

you watch a child ride a sandhorse on the beach,
there's a little fence all around it
and waves are soaking into its hooves -
the child's face is laughing, its hair a mess in the wind.

I want you to leave the lonely pier of my death -
listen for birdsong, a single bird is raising its song
above the tide and the child laughing,
above the noisy vent from the fast food take-away;

It's singing 'kiss you, kiss you, kiss you'.
Walk towards the sand horse, listen to the child,
he is laughing at the wind and the frothy salt water,
he is laughing at the sandy mane and swishy tail.

The lonely pier of my death is not where I am.
I am here, where you are now,
doing all the ordinary things you do,
I am breathing within you, I am with you.

(The 'sand horse' is a sculptured horse made from sand, it is in a sitting position on the beach and the tide is gradually taking it away into the frothy waves)

(June 2010)