Harbour Dusk

She and I came wandering there through an empty park, and we laid our hands on a stone parapet’s fading life. Before us, across the oily, aubergine dark of the harbour, we could make out yachts – beneath an overcast sky, that was mauve underlit, against a far shore of dark, crumbling bush. Part of the city, to our left, was fruit shop bright. After the summer day, a huge, moist hush. The yachts were far across their empty fields of water. One, at times, was gently rested like a quill. They seemed to whisper, slipping amongst each other, always hovering, as though resolve were ill. Away off, through the strung Bridge, a sky of mulberry and orange chiffon. Mauve-grey, each sloven sail – like nursing sisters in a deep corridor, some melancholy; or nuns, going to an evening confessional.