Sea-side Town

Figures by the sea-side, ghostly presences:
you unroll out of the mist at me
like images for a poem.

Ordinary lady, walking your dog by the estuary -
we can pass quite close
but need not acknowledge each other.

Cormorant, swimming in-shore
like a duck in a park -
you are serene and quite safe here.

Man, chasing your daughter
over the tide-wrinkled sand -
you should be remembered like this.

Old sea-side town, with your lit windows and your
    humpy church,
breathing your smoke
into the whiteness of the afternoon:

you dissolve and re-arrange yourself;
...