Lucy
four tankas

the Lucy Lavers

eighty some year old lifeboat

restored to glory

motors smoothly up the creek

in livery resplendent

one of the small ships

sent out in nineteen forty

to pick up soldiers

from the beaches of Dunkirk

and ferry them to safety

at ten I would climb

onto her stand on the beach

of Suffolk shingle

or watch her slide down the ramp

and set out into the waves

she has a new home

some eighty miles north-west

moored on a pontoon

in a tidal Norfolk creek

a hundred yards from my door