Soup by Ros Barber

Here, the sea is milk. A fishy milk, a cold
bouillabaisse of chalk and fin, served on a clatter
of stone. Within its clouded vision, cod fatten,
mackerel cut their zig-zags through the fog
like children dawdling to a school that has disappeared
and may not, they pray, be there when the whiteness clears.

These cliffs are temporary. Reduced and solid,
born from the warm, tropical broth of stock
and stored in a stack above, a solid block
now broken off in chunks and re-dissolved
in the cooler, less forgiving froth
of this liquid finger from the North.

So life revolves. We, too, are soup.
Temporarily solid vats of DNA
fleshed out just long to find a mate
with whom to create a different brew.
We dawdle through the fog. Circling above:
vagrants and migrants, the murderous cries of gulls.

— Ros Barber