NEW YEAR'S EVE

Your white face under the pier destroyed me. I was on my knees trying to unpick the seaweed that shackled your hands as fireworks punctured the sky and latticed the moon. I would have stopped them if I could, but I was as powerless to stop the light leaking through from the funfair overhead, callously dappling you with candy colours, like funereal confetti: light that lit your neck, exposed the livid stricture, made the kink in the clavicle distinct. As I implored the spool of time to rewind, a salty breeze danced Auld Lang Syne along the promenade cheerfully dispatching the dead year. My tears irrigated the sand around you, rivalling the tide that was advancing intent on desecration. A shadow fell on our communion, and a radio crackle spat static into the air, as a policewoman hovered with a head full of protocol.