Barmouth

If somewhere could be more memory than place, this would be it,

where the shell shop long dissolved into the harbour,

where seven policemen are investigating an empty beach.

The jellyfish amusements pump out music into the town,

where fish and chips are the only thing on the menu

and people walk the hillsides in packs.

Driving through the grid of the old town,

‘he shouldn’t be lying in the road’, observes my father,

‘perhaps he’s on his holiday’, says my mother.

I have dreamt it more than been there,

I tell them on the promenade where the view is a caravan

and there are at least seven people in the back seat.