Two Coasts, The Sea Beside

1

What he told her & why.
Standing hard scrubbed
on the verge of free.
Clean as a baby's bum: a seed: a whistle.
Down frothing the air, reprieve's
milky shake.


2

Scree tumbled near cliffs
decorated with fish.
Birds scavenge the fabulous bits.
Dunned by water & wind,
patiently giving away
what can't be redeemed.
The release
of beating waves
with your fists.


3

Whoever stands beside the ocean
can be applauded
for standing at all.
Taking on earth's debt,
boulders spewed like dice
in the horrific
music of creation.


4

Two forgotten bodies cleave
sand & shiver, in deep, once
rocking, putting back
that part of the ocean
they don't need.


5

He looks for light
from the leaning tent;
the Atlantic hauls itself up
& hurls its curse
against that huddled shore.
Cards & brandy
brandished as totems.


6

If it was her birthday still.
If the shore didn't crave
its own niche in affection.
If time couldn't harbor regret.

On her side, the pockmarked
faces of rocks, the mooned
tide pools of the Pacific.
Anemones close in on themselves,
clusters clinging to rock
as if to grace, swarming
like sheep they shrieked about,
back then.


7

She walks out to smell the sea
or rain, pretends
it's something in between,
bits of salt & a wind
that won't quit.
There, where sea gorse grow.


8

He hopes to resurrect himself
the way low tide transforms
this island to a peninsula,
sweet light veering
off to dusk.


9

Waves gone deaf against a garrulous shore.