Cliff Top Cafe by Ros Barber

Here, the cliff top café has succumbed
to being munched itself. The gravity
of its exposed position has listed the list
of ‘teacake, crumpet, butter extra’ (crumbs)
and its concrete anguish hovers in between
ideas of things that do and don’t exist.

It’s life and death now on the seaward terrace
where formerly tea and coffee were the thing
and choice of ice cream pales against the bleak
yes/no of whether where we might sit will perish.
There’s a crack all the way round. The shell is split,
an oyster prized apart by winter’s beak.

It’s rain that unglues this place: saliva-thick
it unstitches the turf, bloats earth, and wears out rock
until rock is done with holding the whole world up
and drops. The shapes of things reverse. One lick
from the sea and we’ll forget what this was. What?
A piece of wall. The bone of an animal. Dust.

— Ros Barber