Animal necks


Look down like a nine-headed god: the figure weaves its way away from the café at the base of the beach, away from the car park in the field / overflow / and away from the rocks placed strategically with a fork lift truck at the edge of the walkway and takes its rucksacked back out past the granite signpost and then up. Looking down metal shafts and rounded shapes to catch signals over the cliffs curious unexplained movements like a secret meeting at night, a conspiracy of water and dams breaking. The figure now in hot sun and there’s nothing new here, a red line appearing beneath the gravel on the path.
        The figure raises its head, rests hands on the back of hips, the rucksack sticking out in awkward shadow. Trying to think, have I been here before, have I, different weather but the thought slips, no matter. 24-hour live feed of the surf on mute, keep you going through the weeks of no touch, no knock, no consideration of change. An oceanic feeling, noise and signal, and the figure takes its hand to clutch the peak of its cap, clenches, red carnation in its mouth, sweat along the rim. A red line in its skin.
        At the top of the rise the low squat of a building comes into view, the figure’s view, and surrounding this the expansion of farmland, harvest and rearing. The slow rotation of a wheel under the surface, a place where the animals drink. Up here, wind, a tricky play with feet. A thousand cow tongues on metal, screams from the beach. Looking down, admirable architecture like a church you studied once in the book of sacred spaces. Vertical concrete fins articulated on the exterior cliff-facing elevation. The figure rises, an alarm nowhere close in mind, but a bell round a neck, a metal shaft through the wall.

Sun bleached concrete, temple of eighteen eyes.

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