As we elderly and swaybacked sat at the south wall of a hotel
enjoying sun and sea
a rusty, u-boat surfaced and came to rest on the sandy beach.
Her captain rolled up his trousers legs
and waded ashore
went to the bar where people said hallo
thought that he was an actor making a war movie.
He asked to borrow the phone
but couldn’t reach the embassy he tried to call.
A calendar on the wall said 2003.
The captain looked back to his ship
his crew had gathered on her deck squinting at the sun,
they where so very white,
had seaweed for hair
and over them hung a phosphorous light.
They didn’t belong here
in fact they where 58 years late
and had children older than themselves.
Somehow they had been caught in a time warp
and washed up here on the shores of peace,
he had to go back out there to the deep ocean
and help them find the year 1945.