Port Mulgrave, Yorkshire

Here they make lobsterpots garish;

yellow, purple, dayglow green

dumped on the pier in a ragamuffin heap

with buoys bright orange at the end of a rope

and a seagull rises, plaintive away

on a silvery wind, the tang of the sea

and a wolf whistle calls a dog back to heel

in a pull from a master, pull from a man.

In brine, these colours are nonsense

but smelling the bait, to gobble and grow,

spikey and spiney I’ll butt in your cage man

and sail to your surface – a world I don’t know

and swing like a clapperless bell,

tentacles turning, waving and heavy and drowning.