the Irish Sea and Mersey meet with iron fists
winter still slices through March days that
make cloaked crows distrust black clouds

that blanket Liverpool towers in ghost-town
mist and haunt high above this grave where
New Brighton’s Eiffel stood, a ballroom

where the Beatles played, now lego-estate-
still-life, stamp-sized gardens in cul-de-sacs
standing atop timber steps down to the prom

past foraging grounds of sandpiper
and redshank, camouflaged by spring tide.
as silver arrows stab through storm clouds

to sharpen the lens on Liverpool’s waterfront
I embark the aged ferry, distant Cheshire hills
outlined above waves that stretch out like space.

First published by  The Open Mouse, July 2017