Elegy

(for Ruth Bidgood)

I learned of your death in a crowded seafront cafe

between trains, casually flicking through my smartphone

as everyone does.  I should have expected this news

but hadn’t.  You’d not have felt at home in this place

distrusting the sea, turning back to the mountains. So

I went for a last look, and spent a half hour counting

the waves, remembering how I’d watched them crashing

off Hengistbury Head, on the actual day you died.