The garden table's a fjord,

each board a peninsula awash

with frozen floes

anchored

to oaken knots –

once were branches, long sawn off –

now inlets of sodden sludge

where glacial erosion –

drifted debris has deltaed.

Sun

transforms all to beaten pewter,

sheeted ice is silver scaled,

sardines winking

in the glinting current,

breeding light.