A reminiscence concerning a walk on a beach near Kings Lynn in north Norfolk, England on New Year’s Day. It was the middle of the AIDS crisis in the 80s. We’d driven there from London. It just felt that way.

 

Hanging on, scraping by,
Head above water
I’ll never learn to fly
In this monochrome world
Of winter trees stripped
Like skeletons against the snow-laden
Sky moving in slow motion
And catching the eye.

On the beach, hunched up,
We face the freezing wind
This wind that crosses the north sea
From Siberia or the Arctic
Or anywhere that’s far from me.

To exculpate our many sins
And strip our visceral hold-on
Each others’ frozen hands
We stagger along the beach
Searching for a place to be.

Buffeted, battered, no-man mattered,
Tasting the sea salt in the spray
And wishing it was any other day.