Pill-box

(For Margaret)

Small, squat, octagonal with thin slits
built, I offer, more in hope than survival.
Bobbies in blue besides gestapo in green
Churchill offers escape, a brother goes
another stays, a betrayal in the family
a hanging at Bar Point.
Could we withstand it?
We agree we can't, tea and crumpet beside the fire
rather not our toes toasted by the filth.
Abu Grahib ... Guantanamo ... Beirut
mythic beasts from between hard cover.
I said, yes, I could cope with that
and the inner lid of my iron maiden opened:
the gleaming shoals of mackerel
sails flap and crack white in the breeze
the bar buoys clang, a long low wind
on the green ground swell, rollers
pitching to the wide near-empty beach
a single fisherman casts his beach-rod
a family four-square in the dunes
their gingham cloth weighs the shifting sand.