Endless traverse between two counties
Pulled and pulled by giant chains
Even through the night
Ensuring the ancient crossing is sustained
When the babies wouldn’t settle
We’d wrap them up and strap them in
Milk-merry, cruising back and forth
Until, relenting, sleep would win
The trusty Torpoint triplets
Tamar, Lynher and Plym
They relish the tale of Sisyphus
(They can identify with him)
They’ll never chart a course of their own choosing
Nor divert on an ocean-going whim
Each dreams of one spontaneous voyage
None lets her captivity define her
She know she’s a vital coupling
Thanks to the chains which confine her
The tethered Torpoint troika
Plym, Tamar and Lynher
For 15 or so minutes
Each commute’s an odyssey
Making a stepping stone of the Hamoaze
Where river gives way to sea
The dropping of the chains
A transitory seabed scar
All that movement, all those miles
It never gets them very far
The trammelled Torpoint trio
Lynher, Plym and Tamar
Jemima Laing 