Low water now and the motley of crabbers

is crammed towards the end of the pier,

leaving space for a merry metaphor

of our times, Uncle Tacko’s Flea Circus,

with its innuendo and innocence,

its knowingness and charm, its vaudeville

of outrageous unnuanced half-truths,

its charivari of anachronisms.

The Bulkeley Hotel on the front (once

a private mansion of many rooms)

and the stone terrace of late Georgian

town houses in this holiday resort

speak of its erstwhile strategic value.

The servants in the yards would beat the fleas

from the covers, the curtains and the carpets.

Nobody takes home the crabs they catch.

The seabed surrounding the pier’s stanchions

is littered with the plastic detritus

of crabbing – nets, lines, bait bags of offal.

In dreams mottled crabs are manoeuvring

to the tops of the buckets, and scuttling

across the planks seawards.

Note: Uncle Tacko’s Flea Circus – www.prom-prom.com.