It was on a Wednesday. The ground was black, shiny. Sky, grey, floats. Clouds bubble. There was something tight in my chest singing from a solar plexus tense and tufted like a beaver’s dam, snapping chewed twigs. Wind smooth the flapping rigging. I stepped into her. She rolled. I lost, almost lost myself in the grey water underneath her straining skin. As she settled

I took the rudder and the reins called sheets.

She swung herself out and her rig smiled when wind took control and pushed. Wood welcomed my face, welcomed combing breeze through dancing ·hair.

I smiled. Tufts of grass on the waters side-stepped

in a shine and out my eyes. Bubbles burst, clouds

span away, dam broke, snapping twigs stepped to one side. Sky fell into a light, a skin, a solar plexus above no underneath but a flapping heart rolled grey,

swinging lost, almost lost, breezing.

It began to rain like horses settling.

Copyright Paul Brookes from ‘Working Title’ published 1989