chug, we sail the clean Aegean east.

EMPTY ROADS guzzle us up, frazzled tarmac,

smoking horizons, lunar mountains, ploughed land, we

snipe, bicker, sweat, as we fizz east, yavas yavas

slowly, slowly, shallow breathing, fantasting baths

of iced water, dream of a full Sunday roast, all of a sudden:

spuds, cabbage, gravy, salivate, PG Tips, in the heat,

fried breakfast? ketchup, even. We become more British,

Trish and I, darker with the Turkish sun, yet less

aware of race for we are simply: Íngiltere.

Our tracks lead to dusty villages, musty beds, my brain

contains three thoughts only – petrol, food, shower.

London retreats, a dislocated memory, immaterial now.

Finally,

I flop on an old hippy beach for a year

and stop.

Under the Asian sun my armour roasts, rusts,

falls off in bits,

is swept out by the tide.          I watch it bob off,

new

flotsam,

study the twinkle twinkles in the firmament at night,

go for a midnight dip,

and emerge,

the sum of all my parts.

HE SMELT of the sea. Hakan. And fish –

during the day. Bedtime of Imperial Leather Soap

and at midnight our bodies made love.

A fisherman, he stitched nets, the far side of the beach.

I watched his back, stripped, hairless, brown, broad

from rowing boats.

I left my tent early morning,

swam over, tiny fish slipping down my costume.

He poured thick coffee, outside his cabin, summers

near the sea, he said, winters in his mountain village.

Hakan. Tatar-man, sharks flecked in his narrow eyes.

Some nights he rowed me out to sea, Mehmet II,

a larger boat, awaited, and nets spread for a wide catch.

I lay on deck, cushioned against salted wood, waves

licked, caressed, the moon, lolling of the sea. Perfect.

I was whole. Closed my eyes, tried to picture my real

life but only sky appeared. He worked silently, oblivious.

I was seasonal, perhaps. It was safe to love Hakan,

both knowing I would not stay forever.

For a while I was a fisherman’s moll,

by the sea, on beaches, on the fallen stone plinths of ruins,

in a cabin, the woods, by the Med.

And when I left,

Hakan did not look up from mending his nets.

CHAPTER 16

1987 –

ELLEN

I WAS her daughter for fifty-four years,

shall be keeper of her grave now, next to Father’s.

Eighty-two years, two wars of this world, in pain

towards the end, she surmounted all trials, a fortitude

I inherited, raising my eight brown-skinned children.

I held her through the night, my mother, my child,

last air gasped out. I held her as she held me when

I cried my first breath. Snow fell all week, freezing

our old away, taking my mother away. Snow fell, painting

Swiss pictures, pretty sights for the dying, no burial

for the dead. Bless you, my mother, for your teachings,

your prayers, your caring, our friendship in later years.

Bless you, my mother, for the love you lived for each