Slave of Solitude (Studland in June)

snapshot from a heatwave

photo © the author

You left with the children some time ago,
the eldest trailing a dolphin board,
the younger one holding your hand,
a happy trio — disappearing down
a sandy corridor leading to the sea,
leaving me alone
in this desert enclave,
to deal with the slow-cooked insides
of a hut as grim as Baba Yaga’s
(minus the chicken legs)
where the sink neither spouts nor drains,
and water has to be drawn
from a big tap at the end of an avenue
sinister in its quietude.

Children’s voices
sharpened by the ricochet,
carried by those little waves
that pounce into the bay,
leave imprints of mischief and delight
along the burnished shore.

Side-stepping through the dry bracken,
I shade my eyes and scan the mid-shallows
for those small bright shapes,
splashing and paddling,
sleek as sea otters,
with you in attendance
a stick man in swimming shorts,
bone-white in the blazing…