Light a small fire beneath
        the tightest clam
        and eventually its lips will sigh open
        neatly expose
        satin flesh.

Emerging with a shrug
your stingray-coloured stone
makes whale song.

Sand like liquid slate glaciers out.
Walked on it subsides, forms puddles, ox-tongue-pliant.

In this place
the first people
interned their dead.

Did the tide massage them free
                                                canoe
remains to the waiting horizon?

Or were they lodged deep in sea-scooped caverns
dragon-eyed shells glittering and suspicious?

Sea garnerings have middened
                                                   found safety
in shuttle shelves.
                              Walls cortex squirm
surround-sound
                          -the hum
of unbirthed

thought.

Salt    spray    kisses    darkened    under    eyes
ventolins    lungs
strokes    constricted    throat.

I would like to meditate here.

Wait
till the tide comes

and         I         turn.