A Poem by Helen Tookey

Shore

(Frederick James Shields, Hamlet and the Ghost, oil on canvas, 1901)

Sick of the racket, the machinations,
sick of the parties and the family romance,

he came down to the shore and here he stands,
under a sky vaster than any

he’s ever seen, a twisting play
of pale cloud, black gaps

like ragged holes torn in a backcloth.
Over the sea, the moon rising

inside its own gleaming arch,
spilling light the colour of rust

onto the sand, and facing him
his own white shadow, pale double,

speaking nothing, but mirroring
in dumb show his every move

 – he blinks, hard, and the figure is gone.
Somewhere behind him, muffled cries,

the world still going its ways
hell for leather through the night.

But here there is only the low hiss
of the tide at his feet, the torn sky,

and the cold burning eye of the moon,
that says to him, Well, and now that you know,

what do you plan to do about it?

Helen Tookey lives in Liverpool. She has published two collections of poems with Carcanet Press, Missel-Child (2014) and City of Departures (2019), and is working on a third.