Gross - The Water Table

Wind-worried to dullness, pulled two ways (earth and moon like parents not quite in accord), unquiet body, it can never quite lay down its silt; always trying to be something other, to be sky, to lose itself in absolute reflection.

No, dreams are not the mystery. The thing is waking. Note to self from other: Here, today let us misunderstand each other giftedly.

It withdrew to the doors of the straits, like an Ice Age instituted overnight, like an empire in-turned behind walls of glittering indifference to the mess outside. And where did that leave us? Facing into the space between redundant coastlines space, a vast parcel wed come down to find at the ring of a doorbell, nobodys birthday, and giftwrapped in silksilver mud. The seabed smell had started rising, that of secrets being out; like any seedy leakage in the press there would be more to come. It wasnt the way we had dreamed it: alluvial pastures unfolded from our inward valleys, restored from our national childhoods. Those whod hoped for free smallholdings for the homeless, and those already drafting the adverts for Atlantis World, wed all be disappointed. As the sun came up it was already baking, the mud going matt, then wrinkling, firing itself like epic pottery.

Tiny islands came into their own, as grass-topped mountains, the one with the lighthouse a marvel: Monte Lucia, heraldic. Trickles cut down deep in muddy gulches, going on for canyons. Round the middle slopes, the beaches were considering a new career as archaeology, waterfront apartments rebranding themselves as mountain villages like Tuscany. The piers seemed naked, their black-weedy legs embarrassing, due for a shave. Work redoubled on long-planned sea walls in case rains washed us down in mudslides like some peasant valley worlds away; we didnt want to go there. Somebody was bussing in scanty-paid somebodies-else already, to pick across the wastes with hammers, chipping out crabs, skirting the bones of burials at sea, a horse, a child from steerage; then that crop was gone.

A few sunk ships were there to be avoided like war graves and, as if that had jogged some recollection, each side sent in surveyors, just to clarify the border. Seeing which, a discreet small column followed, lightly armoured, as the wind got up and mud dust started swirling round them, like in any desert, and first shots were fired, as a precaution mainly. The sea gave an audible sigh and came back in.