The Raft of Doors

When the floods rose, we built a raft of doors,

sealing up letterbox and keyhole, lashing together

front and back, parlour and kitchen alike. Beneath

us were the sunken lands of Norfolk and Kent.

We heard the trees scratch at the doors; through

glass we glimpsed our sodden history – the great

houses of Blickling and Chartwell now a new Atlantis.

With a shed for a wheelhouse, we slept on

compost and made oars from rakes and hoes.

We passed others, on boats of beds and rafters.

One steered from an armchair, a TV remote still

in his hand, hailing us with a copy of The Radio Times.

We traded him a can of soup for a forecast of rain.

For days we saw nothing but spires and treetops.

One vicar had lashed himself to a steeple,

clutching an inflated cassock and a hoard of Bibles.

We counted our blessings and sailed on, our best

linen catching the wind like the breath of Heaven.

We moored up against chimneys, the spouts

of our ruin, the turbine halls now aquariums.  

To open a door would be to let in an ocean.

We met a postman, still with his last delivery

in a hessian sack; scarecrows floated, facedown. 

We beached on Betsom’s Hill, a doorknob

snagging on barbed wire, and felt for the last time,

the comfort of chalk. This, then, was where we lost

the keys to the Earth and every door closed to us.         

 By Christopher James