Traces of Fire

By Kevin Clothier

The sun is waning, leaving traces of fire
in furious splashes across the backs of clouds.
Out on the point, headlights lace the shore
Dividing the land from the channel

There, a flotilla of white sabots coast
in on vermilion sails, passing a lone fisherman
motoring his dingy out toward the middle of the bay
where he will spend long hours dangling a lantern

over the water, drawing bonito and mackerel
up from its depth. At last, the sky gives way
to darkness with dusky blues,
but not without a final flourish, as a
flock of seagulls rise together above the breakwater,
like obsidian sparks shot against a band of blood red light.