Ryan Robson-Bluer

pier jumping

light lying low  

in a cod-liver sky,  

settling through trawlers;

 

wavelets flicker 

steady like second hands 

and boats nod in sleep. 

 

boys line the wall 

like neoprene bollards, 

salt-skinned sentinels  

 

of the sea stand 

as water licks the side; 

pier bricks of wet green. 

 

potholes, numb feet – 

round and pink like salmon –  

slap across the bricks, 

 

heads dripping down 

over water-grazed cheeks, 

earfuls of ocean, 

 

now cast head-first  

over bruised hemp rope, 

hurling themselves

 

into greenish spume, 

flipping to the very last 

wink of the sun.