Some of Hastings has toppled into the sea.
This time, the giant rock killed no one, but
fast forward to another century
and people will abscond, their doors will shut,
the gracious Georgian terraces, the beach huts
be drowned, the crumbling castle overhead
collapse, the famous caves fill with salt water.
It might reach my old home, but I'll be dead,
the cliffs, like Robert Tressell's murals, gone,
and none look down on Hastings, except the moon.
Merryn Williams' latest collection is The Fragile Bridge: New and Selected Poems (Shoestring Press). She grew up in Hastings but now lives in Oxford.
Art by Rachel Qiu Kexin