The Poetry Society

Sails gavotte the sea's chipped glaze;

snorkellers paddle out, glimpsing swimmers' legs,

sea urchins, jellyfish veils,

claws that scuttle up a sediment

the sea lets slowly fall.

I'm caressing sun-cream onto your

shoulders' freckled skin,

watching two women wince over shingle

to the water's hem; the eldest mottled

the plum colour of falling fruit,

her daughter ripening an identical smile

at the sea's petulance.

Delighted by the tang of waves the old woman sinks

forward, tattooed by her own veins, sculling

in slow strokes to an horizon of tinder hills

smouldering in surf.

Last night we lay in the din

of unsleeping Spaniards dining late;

this morning I kissed your belly, water-

marked where our children swam out to nets

we couldn't guess away.

Those youngsters jack-knife from rock,

their bodies oiled, water-borne, careless,

the French girls glazed as new bread,

the Spanish boys watching them

with eyes of startled blue.

Flippers semaphore another sub-aqueous

surprise - something else ecstatically

alive beyond your skin's heat,

those women spitting water,

the sails' paso doble

over waves' applause.