“Guarda, Ida, la còsta!”
She imagined, as she had for weeks,
a dun shore breaking through the fog,
a stand of larkspur, houses
on the curling bay.
As wind broke over the gunwales,
a fine low humming.
It was sudden when she came
to rest, the Santa Vincenta, thudding
into dock. The tar-faced lackeys
lowered the chains, seals
popped open, and the ship disgorged
its spindly crates, dark trunks
and children with their weepy frowns.
There were goats and chickens,
litters and a score of coffins
on the wharf at once.
Cold, wet, standing by herself
in the lines of custom
under some grey dome, rain falling
through the broken glass above her,
she could think of nothing
but the hills she knew:
the copper grasses, olives
dropping in the dirt, furze
with its yellow tongues of flower.