It was worth it, forty pence

for the Cornish Express.

(the broadsheet, not the bus) in a grocer shop

Lands End way.

And the wait, so long; for the bus

would never come they said,

no one here had seen it.

A ghost in the drizzle machine.

We gypsied on through fog

that kept us hypothermic,

but did not listen, and sung

that name, Lands End

which drew us on, what we headed for.

Unknown residue of North Atlantic light

not far from here. As west as you could go.
Meanwhile we’d wait, get dry, that sour shopkeeper’s

rather-sell-you-nothing face

not big on trust; but did relent, and sold us

what we never knew we missed –

lemons, half a pound; the acid

scurvy cure: citrus six pack,

imports in a battered mildewed box

going nowhere else,

thick and bubbly skinned

desiccated by iridescent spore,

coral bloom behind a stack of Daily Telegraphs.

Warming in our hands.

What they were

what they had always been, sweeter

than they looked.