SALT- COMPOUNDS
salt-scythe
sweeps onshore, corrosive and hissing; pins back
ears; rifles each stay, shroud and halyard.
creek-wood
the old ones, clinker-built and always thirsty;
noses blunt and bottoms glaucous; still quivering.
sea-garment
roseate spinnaker, light-breasted; no less
stiff canvas, often split and mended, grey with salt.
herring-haunt
see-through escarpments toppling and barking
as they dive through themselves into ghosts of flint.
mauve-mist
delicate as breath suspended over marsh grass;
summer carpet, wiry and tide-beaten, knotted in mud.
wave-arms
without joints, creaking and groaning; like wings
their strange spade hands salute and dip and rise.
mud-runes
ribbon-casts, blow-holes, keel-scrapes, anchor-spikes,
darts of the stitchers and strutters and mincers.
--Kevin Crossley-Holland
from his Selected Poems,
London: Enitharmon Press, 2001
