DOLLYMOUNT STRAND

The chimneys, set against a greyness

that pushed against my coat

Two of them and a flat, empty skyline

They punctuated my childhood

enormous, mythical things

never near but always there, interrupting the horizon.

Family days at the beach as they watched on, belching plumes of smoke

Returning to see them decades later I expect to reminisce

to time travel

I do not

I see them both, two pulses on a flatline

They are weathered, left to ruin, tired

I am colder for the sadness.

Then, a miracle

smoke

tentatively at first and then two sure grey lines

a smile in my stomach

the smoke is moving upward.