There is no easy way to say it:

There is fish vomit in my ears,

 

There is salt in my eyes

And scarcely a pinch of memory

 

to flavour the whole thing

with that luxury ‘reality’.

 

I am pebble smooth, yet my

conscience is ragged I am

 

seaweed swaddled and all I

have on my mind: my

 

flotsam form wrecked

in one long gargle of froth, and

 

Should my arm bend this way?

I think not, I

 

fear the seagulls are wiser

than me in thinking I’m dead,

 

And the dawn staggers blearily

up from the shingle

 

as if it had forgotten,

what it was meant to be doing,

 

So greyness then, and a

single cloud that composes itself

 

in a way that I cannot tell

is just bad luck or a bad joke, it

 

Crowns the sky and I kick a rock, think

‘God-’ it

 

breaks down into turrets and I curse

as a crab begins to gnaw my scalp…

 

Give me time. This dawn could last

aeons, and the whole worlds mouth

 

swills with grey. I light a fire from kelp

and laugh. So far, this is

 

my favourite miracle.