POND MAN'S FRONT DOOR

Pond Man opens his front door. Push, shove, crick. Swollen again. Pond Man shakes his head. Always the same: the salt air, damp, moist and spoiling. Swells in winter and come spring he must plane her down to stop her sticking on the jamb. Always betraying him, those joints. He’d have to get the saw out. Perhaps he should replace her. Pond Man pulls the oval door too and fro. Too tight. Too tight. It wasn’t right.

Sally Bayley