Night Swimming

by Roy Marshall

That august day was weirdly lit: heat built,
lawns turned the purple of welsh slate

and a forecast storm never came. Bees trod
the pollen-loaded blooms, a butterfly opened

in the sunflower's eye, voices drifted from a room
where writers wandered towards themselves.

The best was this: that evening you proposed
the waves, so we five met to cram the car

with towels and bright eyes. At midnight, below
the castle on the rock, I waded the path

of the moon, laid my cheek to the cold black,
kicked and stroked home.

Judge's Comments - Martin Malone

I had to set aside my love of the REM track of the same name but, on another day, this poem could so easily have won the competition. It's a fine example of how a poem can be clinched without any over-heavy adjectival support but just through the telling telling of details loaded with quiet resonance and duality of meaning. Some astonishingly good images and subtle shifts that take the poem deftly through its paces to that final image.