St Christina

St Christina:

Plastic bags, sea glass and microplastic

is consumed by hermit crabs.

Is shriving across the sea floor in multi-coloured drifts.

The whipped and foaming Sea rushes in and hurries back out crunching pebbles.

knit the soles of my feet, with bladderwrack and bottles that I might walk on water.

I am bathed with incomprehension at the wild beauty, the raw force of the waves.

I am parched from over-salination,

like a beached and salted cod choked with too much land.

The sea laps at my legs, soaks through the

broderie anglaise of my paper-thin veneer of respectability.

As the Hanging Rock girls erased in the setting sun never to be seen again.

My hat flies backwards off my head, tossing Mr Softee hair into my eyes,

dissolving my façade of decorousness as I strip to my costume.

Feel the brute strength of the riptide drag and pull,

over balance and push at my computer-weakened body.

Tide pools of tiredness wash back into the sea leaving me refreshed, a small miracle.

 


 

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