Robin Fulton Four poems

Whitsun

Not points of flame but icy tongues from the north-west sting me by the shore. In crevices seapinks keep their fine balance.

I lack both the bravura of gale-defying petals and the mindlessness of rock: I could try between four walls

but so many languages I don’t know howl past, prise at gable-ends with such fury I tell myself it’s music.

Deep inside it I inhale silence. But the silence starts howling as well, a language with only one word to rage in.