Up Against the Sea

At the foot of the cliff, the sea is taking back what it left there long ago, and the landowners have made a barricade of three old cars between low and high tide and loaded them with so many river stones, they've been weighed down below their springs, below their shock absorbers. The waves are breaking over the side panels, on blurred teenage graffiti, and barnacles and tougher limpets have made themselves at home on mats and cushions, on the salt versions of vinyl and rust. The sea is welcoming all of them, as ever, as passengers at the end of a lover's leap, at the beginning of a joy ride down an old lover's lane again.