Something disquieting about their age,
lined up by the
water’s edge.
Friends circle with cameras
and a girl in green dabs at her eyes,
stares at indifferent rock walls.
Is this a shotgun wedding,
a marriage of convenience
or, in the absence of parents, family,
a romance, escape, elopement?
We listen for clues in another language.
The goldfinch over the table
pecks at seeds, pays no heed
to the blue-suited official
hearing their vows,
to our whispered theories.
Something melancholic too about
these mussel shells, empty plates
dyed black with squid ink
while a teenage couple hesitate
over promises and ‘I will’.
Sunlight striating the cliffs
towards afternoon’s end
doesn’t disturb the rower
passing into the backdrop
of their muted photographs.
Witnesses, uncertain about
what we’re witnessing,
we’ll stand and clap with the rest
when he puts out his hand
to help her up onto the boat.
Shoeless, they’re sailing west,
negotiating tourist islands,
ferries crossing the fjord,
dispersing light rain –
then outwards, on towards the sea.
