on the front at Beaumaris, so we had

our chips, fish and mushy peas in the Vectra,

watching the ebb tide slowly, slowly expose

the furrowed gold of the Lavin Sands

and the cormorants and oyster catchers

skim the waves, when, suddenly, a herring gull,

that voracious omnivore, that frequenter

of rubbish tips and landfills – the colours

of its plumage pristine, as if painted -

landed on our bonnet and, not six feet

from a town council notice forbidding

the feeding of said beasts, watched us eat

each pea, chip, fish flake and morsel of batter -

meanwhile blocking the view – and then buggered off!

a paddle steamer on a sudden sandbank -

pounding itself, pounding itself, pounding…

seas silencing the hullabaloo.

For the last time, the lifeboat pulls for the shore.

Two lovers, roped to the mast, drown their joy.

All turned to chalk on the dark sea bed.

Far, far above was the muffled cry

of gulls, the cormorant’s swift shadow.