prose poems from guest contributors: 2 Jeff

I'm delighted to have had a number of submissions for my prose poem challenge for this month. Please keep them coming – I've space for a few more.

Here's a new one, from Jeff:

'The boat – barge, rather, narrow boat, ninety feet of steel, a huge cigar of steel – slides silently ahead, the bow splitting the water, slipping sibilantly through the water, breaking up the planes of water, tumbling the plates into waves and rocking splashings, fracturing the sun's reflections, creating dishes, plackets, pockets, hollows of water, each bearing its own reflection so that now a million sunlights dance across the surface in our wake.  In front, ahead, the great planes of water wait their turn.  Behind, the motor thuds, the heavy reassuring diesel thuds, intrusive; and smoke, man-made, drifts back away behind.  Here in the bow one sees only the soft thrusting forward, hears only the soft sweet sound of water separating, slipping past the steel: kind, supportive, untormented.'