Shingle and a red cliff.
A falling away to surf,
the dim surge of a perpetual clock.
“My father loved this beach," I say.
You look over your shoulder
as if to find him.
I’d watch him fill his lungs with it, unfurling his back and shoulders
with the long muscle of familiarity.
He’d follow the current of people,
cupping his ears to the stirring
of dogs, cricket bats, the rattle of
change in the tuppenny waterfalls.
This was his beach disguise,
the blown out salt edges
of his childhood glimmering
on golden afternoons.
Eyes shut to the breeze
he would circle with bragging gulls
over high cliffs, rock pools,
the salt and vinegar sea front.
You think of him too,
guiding you across slippery rocks,
plodging in the shallows.
The same sea’s rhythm is in you.
This beach is our convergence,
where we face the same sun,
see the same bright dresses
flap tight to thighs
like a tatter of flags
Here time drags our lives
to a single point,
along the furrows we plough
fetching water for our moats.
Our backdrop, a scatter of children,
red limbed, in a wash
of ozone and seaweed iodine.