| Grey skies at dusk fall: | |
 | humid lies Innsmouth’s skies |
| and mocking clouds cover all, |
| a storm in waiting lies. | |
| The ocean, silent and still | |
| as marble of mortuary bed, |
| lies waiting without a rill |
| even when broken by the head | |
| of a solitary swimmer about the reef. | |
| It is so quiet no-one sees |
| the swimmer seeking relief |
| in the absence of a shorewards breeze. | |
| Dusk, and the waiting is almost stone, | |
| monolithic, it hangs and grows; |
| waiting for something, the swimmer alone, |
| expectancy grows. | |
| Any moment, the ships will come | |
| to break the city far below, |
| rending the swimmers mute, dumb |
| as fear and outrage flow | |
| into a vain and futile act, | |
| breaking the calm as with a skipped stone, |
| breaking the silence as with a vain fact, |
| and summoning at last the farflung family home. | |
