99.

Your heart is knapped flint, or is it mine?

I had not realized you were a kittiwake

Building a deep nest in my heart. You nearly,

Or more nearly I, ruined what I had

But made we nearly made me, towards

The end of youth, not knowing how brittle

The mind is, how close to soul, heart, bone

It had come. There were sole, plaice, brill, cod, even

Dogfish at the stalls, once slithering on the boats

After the haul. My words are herring, red

And otherwise, finding hook, line, net

Sunk. The heat of blood, the fade of recollection

Vanish past the pier. A love that is not the love:

The mind gulled on the beach at dusk.