You take a drink in the Merchant’s Arms,
fire ablaze… Exeter quietly pummelling Bath
on the muted telly. People drawing back together
after being away at New Year, Christmas.
The mood relaxed, now there’s no pressure to celebrate.
Convivial in a Hotwell’s bar that makes few demands.
As you walk home the moon floats
in a perfect pool of blackness.
Strange to turn from fireside company
down the harbour road, past the locked-up boatyard
into the arms of the skeletal lime trees
and the swallowing dark; familiar, yes,
in the here-of-this, but under that moon
you’re now a million miles from anywhere.
