Enrolling in the Shingle

by ali shaw

-Enrolling in the shingle-

Like bacon rashers, tiled on a butcher's counter
dyed blue for a forgotten gimmick,
waters of the Channel overlap,
as still as the ribs of an escapee holding
her breath, dear as the infant Christ's head.

Gently gently, white moss in clots of
lying low breakers stretching far to Calais,
Cherbourg, clouds motionless
are pulped flies on the skylight to space where
the salmon pink blinds are receding.
I cannot catch them moving.

I am fermenting here, shrouded with wakefulness.
Impatient boy and the Channel both fall like the trees in the
fables:
is our sound a silence when she is unable to hear us?