Cycling the Island

Summary

The day was a cold one, wind

whipping up curds in the bay,

choughs black dots blown

from the cliffs like a veil.

Anoraks ballooned, my husband

pregnant, a precarious seahorse

on the hired bicycle; our son

on the pedals, the orange bars

of his trainers flashing,

his green coat, I recall, the same

buff-olive as the sea. I had

laundry to do, lastnight's

washing up, a sweep through

the cottage for sand, fragments

of shell. Next year, I thought,

waving them off, a hotel.

Seems so selfish now, careless,

and careless the word I used

when my husband came back

alone in panic, the wind

behind him. So much care,

to bring a child through his first

nine years, to simply lose

sight of him around a bend in the road.