A coupling after Two’s Company by Ambre Burt

Julius turned his gaze
His hard and incurious gaze

To the scene below,
A scene that was empty to him

Where the white wave tops struck the shore.
The shore that silently called the sea

Rocks glistened in the Sun
The gleaming sunlight shining wetly

As gulls wheeled and cried above his head.
Crying out at the majesty of the sea

All around there were only the sounds
Raucous noise and subtle both

Of nature,
And nature’s own refrain

No chatter or music or other manmade sound.
No man made a sound here, pleasant or not

It was as though he was alone
His lone solitude – a fortress

On the planet
His place of refuge on this Earth

With only the birds and sea for company.
Companioned by uncaring sea and sky.

(Non-italicized lines are the lines of prose, interspersed with my new lines of poetry – The Coupling – find a passage of prose you like and lineate it in a way that feels meaningful, then interpose a line of your own after every line of prose, perhaps echoing the prose line with assonance or rhyme. Created by Karen McCarthy Woolf)