Some Seascapes    Helen Boden

1. Graphic

‘She gets so attached to things’

they’d say in other rooms, thinking,

or not, she was out of earshot.

It’s true she insisted on keeping

the wrappings from Christmas presents,

tried to hold onto holidays, clutching the rail

at the back of the boat as islands receded

1976

begins her newest fable

from this July’s fortnight

in a shore cottage in Sleat

1769

an inkblot cloud pursues the Ardvasar

                                                     

galleon         sail         cloud

all speech bubbles

flurries of vowels        morphemes       ideas

on a punctuation-flecked sea

swirls       whorls

of inverted commas

conversation billows

between  the Ardvasar and the Glenelg

a thought detaches from the former          memory sprays

a wake for the clearances

will they consolidate

into a skerry of…