Pier

At the end of the world the pier clings
Abandoned to shallows, cut off, scared
Like drinking sailors blind to their fate
All thirsty with the rust and the salt

As a ship, it is bleached, fragmented
An empire beached and all broken;
its paintwork scurvied gives to the deep
As the windows shatter the seascape

Creaking the song of the decking
Sea legs burst, stagger and swagger
The victors; whispers, walk the planking
Sea dogged in lines and confusion

And the tide, a circle, comes and goes
And the sea knows