Mary Morrison made her living room
from the spars of her father’s trawler;
it was either that or leave it to rot
on some distant shore.
If you smoothed your palm on the oak
it was between sand and salt:
if you chapped it,
it gave out a scut.
The beams of the bow curved out
towards the sea, two miles away.
Each night the walls would catch
in the tide and pull on anchor,
echoes would sound through the wood,
like the calls of sea-monsters.
Polyps and coral started to form under the TV shelf,
the bay-window murmured bawdily,
the wind caught the chimney by the scruff
and tried to lift it from its moorings,
under the coffee table stowaways gathered
whispering in sullen mutiny.
A sailor’s boottaps
keeps the smallhours;
the pulling of ropes fills the day.
Over time, she will work open the knots,
force herself towards the sea,
be broken on the way.