Thor’s Harbour

by Daniel Rye

A grey pleated curtain 
of falling snow 

draws across the fjord, 
obscuring, then revealing,

the inner workings 
of the waterfront stage 

where technical crew 
fork and shunt containers

to marked positions
ready for the next scene,

illuminated now 
in cold turquoise 

from an overhead lighting rig,
while in the wings

a Russian trawler 
silently docks.

Yesterday’s storm
is still at sea,

firing saltwater mortars 
hard at the beach.

Turnstones scuttle 
back and forth,

wave after wave 
in the sandy saliva,

endlessly searching 
for lost bodies 

around a wet limpet shell
lying lifeless and defenceless.

Seaweed limbs 
litter the tideline,

wrecked 
by unexploded sunlight. 

Rumours of a submarine 
ripple from the lip of the horizon.