double tongued sea tasting                                                  gluttonously dripping

silent smooth glazed                                                              sea jelly glide

tannin-tea lunatic weed                                                        slaps slurps sucks

strips locks knots                                                                   in grooves and rock clefts

hissing shingle as I beach                                                     unpin taut legs reach

steps to headland                                                                    gaze look see

sea above                                                                                   sea below…

what changes?

flat hard glassy                                                                      glittered ship-pocked plain

punched arthritic knuckles                                                   land grab sky

down                                                                                         oyster sharp

winkle smooth                                                                        stone litter

astride afloat again                                                                 drawn by  tidal thread

blind moon bound                                                                    on puckered peacock sea

an orange fleck                                                                          gannets gawp

gulls guffaw                                                                                sea shudders

I slide from earth crust                            out                           to felt thread

back tight going nowhere                                                        til I check land

see I’ve moved                                                                           self powered I thought

now fragile                                                                                 I let go

sea syrup sweetens my soul

beneath-sea wind                                                                   wafts weed and me

sky currents whisper                                                              in an oyster’s ear

I am centre circle                                                                     noon mid-tide

grounded in glutinous water                                                 it lets me flow over

could with one arthritic punch                                             one long held breath

one swell of chest                                                                     knock me out

send me weed bound                                                                 down to sirens

sensed in sea deep bones

 

 

copyright Christine Cooke

April 2016