all those beginnings I went to such damn trouble with my castles, a moat, defences—bulwarks—twigs I found for flags, and the tide flagged your hopes instead, your skin burned in the sun like apricot the wind turns northerly late morning so we pack up the umbididdilies and traipse on back to the holiday haunts, our elders share drinks and nibblies over stuff and tales they told, golf or fishing, otherwise, and I read MacLean or Fleming or Wouk or maybe that one the Aunt had taken from her shelf, the long one with bits you just had to flip back…