and she doesn’t look like Gillian at all
when I tell her.
Except her face is all screwed up
in that way that she has
when she’s chewing on her thoughts

She pokes a stick between stones into sand
How’d she die? She asks
up-turning the hollowed-out shell
of the body of a crab
Dunno, I say, then, she killed herself

And we sit, for a while
In our old black coats
and wellington boots
with the old grey sea
who was never meant for me, or her
but here we are again,
anyway

And when we leave
over ploughed fields
and dust cracked earth
in the old red Land Rover
that jolts
the seats that squeak
and bounce
I don’t watch the sea
disappear
out of sight