Three Poems

The Good Hotel

Mr Bridge showed us round the property.
His mouth was a trap door
Made of skin. I kept thinking
I might fall into it.

'The town needs a good hotel,'
He said, 'There are seventeen bedrooms here,
Wonderful views from each one.'
The windows were like trapdoors

Into which mountains and an estuary
Had fallen. How much, we thought,
Would seventeen bedrooms cost? Seventeen
Mirrors. Seventeen televisions. 'Children come

From everywhere,' he said, 'for the crab fishing.'
From a window we could see them, lined
Up along the quay with plumb-lines
...