All day we’ve had big sporadic drops,
no real rain, no downpour, release,
just shifting Channel breeze through the gaps
between hedgerows’ thin growth and the house.

We exceed ourselves in each other’s touch,
from bedside table, text-alerts’ pulsing glow.
That slightly stale salty air off the dark unseen stretch
of estuary feels heavy. Darkness lies beyond and below.

This evening promises a change in the weather
but here even local predictions more often just change again,
and couples may make time, turn down lights and lie together,
those heartbeats constant against tiny patterns of rain.