Stanpit

Marshland and estuary:
black-backed gulls dive-bombing fry;
siskins in yellow-tipped gorse;
a manic mare-chasing horse
thundering grass and shingle;
the white hiss of arching swans
when low-flying, slow-flapping herons
veer a cutting wing too close. 

A gusting sea-wind
whipping the mullet-grey bay.
At unseen intervals,
the sudden splash of a plank,
denting water with falling dunt -
my galvanized attention cranes too late
to see the flinging muscle of fish.

Why break and boil the brackish glide-
flashing a momentary rupture?
Do you breach from gill-twisting torture?
Are you "crying out for water"?
Each surface slice and falling thud
detaches sucking sea-lice.
Restless as the tide,
a gravel-stream runs in your blood.

The lapwing fans in flight
when you heave and leap again.
Oxygen floods your gills,
flaps the black-headed gulls,
fires the horse to thunder and bite.
Marshes stretch to the distant Solent
while somewhere high on Salisbury Plain
a birthing river reclaims your moment.