THIS OLD PORT OF MINE.

The salt and pepper pot
By the port
Contained the town’s
Water supply,
Though the real worth
Of its contents
Was reflected in the dock’s
Infrastructure:

Rhine barges and larger piled
High with boxes of
Obnoxious products, and
Less useful things,
Lifted and tipped of
Their wares
By a new generation of
Agency worker.

Sheds built on the last
Acre of land
Available for stuffing
With rent free goods,
And queues of red and white woods,
And coffin shaped rods
Of unwanted metal besides
Human sized rolls of shit paper.

Seasonal tours from museum
Owners transporting
The needy and nauseous
Into the unknown;
Those recently cleaned up canal
Ways once full of
Tom Puddings shoveled high
With the area’s coal.

And one lonely green hoist in
Remembrance of four
Fingers lost to the frostbite
Of progress,
Like most of the once handballed
Items and weather worn
Faces of Dockers two decades
Older than seemed.

And finally us who were born here
And once strolled where we
Wished in an age when the fish were
More plenty than fences,
And rights of way were a given
Without yellow lines
To remind us to stay in them,
As if we’d forgotten what was in the dock.