The waves tumble forward
– as waves tend to do –
the rocks roll back
then root themselves in sunken grandeur
they are the splendour of the sand
lineaments of lineage
forgotten
yet remembered in the imprint
of our footprints.
Press, sink, root, rise
rhythm of these tides and tied-up feet
interlaced
I watch the families
storm the beach.
the run and amble of them
birds puffed
to flight
in the flap of jacketed wings
the height of excitement
faff of play and spaded chase
while lag of encumbered trail behind
their puff a wheeze in the trundle
under the bundle of layers
abandoned
to the mildness
by the Michelin men dissembling
shedding to resurrecting
in the ebbing of enthusiasm.
I watch them,
one year older
one beloved less
one number more
than before
these scattered armies
and forming parties
I like the procession
of their concession
to this day
this picking up of shells and putting down of phones
the skip and flick of skimming stones
as they push out and on to January grey
and into earth remade
in reach and breach of this
tongued beast.
She is a lick
a slap
a hug
a shrugging decline
nonchalance and romance
scattering skeletal kisses
in the slope of shoreline.
Holed runners carry her
brined saliva home.
Up the soft carpeted stairs
past the ribboned cat
sleeping dog
a mother humming dinner into being
sister perched in pajamaed abstraction
I drizzle sand like sugar
on my pilgrimage to the shower
anoint the house with its grit and gumption
before the inevitable scrub of unctions
but I am not washing away
the salt does not sit on skin
to be felled to extinction
in toss, tumble of life
these years are not to be rubbed to tenses of
past present future
eroded to should haves. dids. must dos.
they rub me to smoothness
roll me towards pearled perfection
world, I am learning.
As her salt sits silted in my heart
stinging apathy to action
soothing ache to acceptance
solidifying home into something
as simple as a smell –
the waft of the Atlantic –
I think
– I was always bad at geography.
I step out into the soft towel.
pull the starched clouds around me.
I am not new
but there is newness to be made in me
in the wipe of mirror
clear and cleanse of steam
to smile old and gaze clean.
Earnest & Ethereal 