THE U-BOAT AND THE WHALE

Undercurrent echoes of living flesh

sing through half-sunken subs:

sounds that, leaving Lincolnshire

and heading South, bounce around

The Wash, the Yarmouth Coast,

towards Sheerness.

In search of – what?

A rusty skeleton?

She hears his hunger songs and sings to him

with metal tongue, her own

‘Ich weiß es nicht.’

Her iron coffin voice –

depth charged, displaced –

rides North on winter waves.

She waits.

Then tries again.

Wo sind Sie jetzt?

Mud banks and hostile sands.

With ferrous blood in ferrous veins

and heavy heart,

she waits.