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featured poet – Hylda Sims (1932-2020)

Cliff Hangers

In the pub, old boys, moved in from the south
perch, grey parrots, boasting, roosting,
opposite, the smoke hoose (as they say up here)
unwinds a scarf of kipper-scented grey
into a black, travelling sky
 
We walk along the coastal path, past
Bungalows, allotments, soon fields of cows
slope to a cliff, sheer, curving round a shore
of black whinstone and scoops of beach
across the face hundreds of birds
 
kittiwakes, sit breast on breast
cuddled on rock ledges, their guano,
marking time, thickened to white lace,
audience to the lift and lull of tides
curtainfalls of cloud
 
April snow flurries the high hedges
of whitethorn, merges with blossom, melts
in our plastic cups of tea, falls
on our sandwiches, forms crystals
on his red hair then blows over
 
He scrambles through a patch of heather
finds a spur of whin where breakers turn
whirlpooling spouts of foam on him
in his navy scarf and anorak
he watches the kittiwakes fish
 
and I watch him – he capers near the edge
leans over, flaps his wings, pretends
to be a gull, a jagged cross beneath
the old smooth wheel of birds, inapt as Cnut
before the riff and buff of waves
 
Kittiwakes, wide-armed, screaming, drop
in the sea’s open throat, held on a feather
I climb over, pull him back, back to the pub
where there are parrot stories, smoke and kippers
people playing darts
 

Hylda Sims

Second Prize winner (and consequent publication), London Writers’ Competition, 1995

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