Riverside, Midwinter

No bridge. No further shore. Launches purr
seawards, draw dark lines across a wall
of blue inside grey inside white.
The cries of birds seem sharper, more poignant —
in dune shrubbery, somewhere ahead.
Silver gulls fly out of vagueness into
meticulous detail, lit by sunbursts
that shift the fog wall back: under glass,
seaweed adrift in forms so spikily
distinct, so alien, as to suggest
a parade of failures of the imagination.
Half-glimpsed walkers shed veils of smoke,
assume density to become
fresh faces above coats, gloves, shoes.