The Unthinkable

A huge purple door washed up in the bay overnight,

its paintwork blistered and peeled from weeks at sea.

The town storyteller wasted no time in getting to work:

the beguiling, eldest girl of a proud, bankrupt farmer

had slammed that door in the face of a Freemason’s son,

who in turn had bulldozed both farm and family

over the cliff, except for the girl, who lived now

by the light and heat of a driftwood fire on a beach.

There was some plan to use the door as a jetty

or landing-stage, but it was all bullshit, the usual idle talk.

That’s when he left and never returned. Him I won’t name — 

not known for his big ideas or carpentry skills,

a famous non-swimmer, but last seen sailing out,

riding the current and rounding the point in a small boat

with tell-tale flashes of almost certainly purple paint.