Annunciation

It was the white boats
            As I recall,
The improbable masts
Swaying drunk together,
      Annunciations of the rich
            At Padstow;
Packed back into their boxes
      Now, as Winter Cometh,
Seagulls like scouring brushes
            Battered where tourists
      Dripped their ice cream
                  Once.

It was the boats that reminded
                  Me,


      We are each a God –
Teenage Aristotles in Golden Coffee shop
            Windows,
      There is nothing beyond our divine
                  Understanding; what we’ve
Gleaned from our young poetry
And what Nietzsche taught us –

      That ‘there are no facts; only interpretation.’


The Assistant at Starbucks sees us off;
      Back to the coastal promenades
            Beaten against by elements, grey
And just plain irrespectful of its general messiahs.

      But this is nothing more than inconvenience.


Still, those evenings, wracked
                  With blue and
      The slow barges of black trees, skinning
            Their backs at the window -
Flashes of yellow steal back
            Seen, eyes between the fence boards,

Something coming.


      Four ‘o’ clock and I, the Son of Man
            Am awake, sucked to the corners
      Of the bed. An outline, a shadow
Of the Vacuum that was God,
            Flexing by the curtain.

      A sigh that sounds something
                  Like a comfort

                              An apology.


      Catherine Woodward

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