RETURN TO THE ESPLANADE

The Esplanade is just as I left it.

Here is the Red Lea Hotel, the Royal,
the house we said we’d buy with the writer’s turret,
the memorial benches, parked in remembrance.

Here is the line of wide eyed cars,
their colours hushed by Dawn
and here, the sunken café
deals its breakfast plates across the bay.

But instead of bright windows,
in place of loose-haired holiday makers
in green dresses and blue smoke,
there hangs a mosaic of yellow reminders,
licked to stick across the coast,
these epileptic tongues
trading rumours in the wind.

Here are those familiar cliffs, now
the fridge doors of my busy agenda.

Listen to the quick notes
of my once great symphony!