Details
You showed me
sand-under-the-microscope photos. It thrilled me to think that each scooped
handful of every-year-beach was a striped, twisted, fluted smorgasbord of edible-looking
delights. I would grab a fistful of cold wet gritty stuff, imagine my hand full
of jewels. Every sandcastle was a Hansel and Gretel boiled sweetie palace,
every kick in the foam brought up treasure. I took a medicine bottle of sand
home with me, its greyish layers as beautiful to me as the souvenir bottles of
coloured lies from the rock-and-tat shops. You still haven't told me that those
pictures were cleverly curated half-truths, that you think I can't handle the ugliness.
The Bay, Again
Long lazy swash
blinks Welcome on the sand as we approach. The tiny bay is a pocket of
late August sunshine, just as it was last this time last year, the ones before.
A child in a floppy yellow sunhat watches as sand-scratched letters fill and
swoosh away like foamy bathwater. We settle on a green rock each, kick off our
shoes and the decades which grow on us like limpets. We laugh together,
throatily, as they land in salty pools. Our cares are different here. There is
kipper on the air; tomorrow we will eat them for breakfast with fat warm
tomatoes and doorstep-bread, run butter down our chins. I will take my pills
silently, with sweet hot tea. We will watch the storm roll over the bay and
think only of our next adventure.
