Hues and Shades

By: Seán Tate

Seven shades of blue reflect the pale white moon.

Grey pebbles speckled with ebb and flow tide-spits.

Fever dream winds rustle the leaves of the trees.

Early lovers walk, arms chain linked, uncomfortable in silence.

They fill the gaps the wind doesn’t fill with their stops and starts.

Too ensure of themselves to show themselves, they put forth

a patch-work version.

Bits of this, bits of that.

What went before, but never really began.

Half-baked lovers with hollow hearts.