Whitsun

This is not what I meant: Stucco arches, the banked rocks sunning in rows, Bald eyes or petrified eggs, Grownups coffined in stockings and jackets, Lard-pale, sipping the thin Air like a medicine. The stopped horse on his chromium pole Stares through us; his hooves chew the breeze. Your shirt of crisp linen Bloats like a spinnaker. Hat brims Deflect the watery dazzle; the people idle As if in hospital. I can smell the salt, all right. At our feet, the weed-mustachioed sea Exhibits its glaucous silks, Bowing and truckling like an old-school oriental. You're no happier than I about it. A policeman points out a vacant cliff Green as a pool table, where cabbage butterflies Peel off to sea as gulls do, And we picnic in the death-stench of a hawthorn. The waves pulse like hearts. Beached under the spumy blooms, we lie Sea-sick and fever-dry.