GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL

GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL
Jean Sprackland
 
In those days, you simply ran
your finger over the map
until you reached an obscure bit of coast,

a boarding house with nylon sheets
and a register you could sign
with a false name, no questions asked.

No one could monitor you here,
except the seagull at the window
shouting his one filthy joke.

You’d go out early to avoid the breakfast
with its whispers and repressive cutlery,
and if, as you walked the shingle,

you heard the faint tread of another,
it was only your footprints collapsing behind you
and the grit trickling in.

Each small wave wrote a line of code
which no one noticed
and the next erased it unread.

Imagine it! You could walk for hours
and there was nothing tracking you
except your own disintegrating steps.