The ripples at St.Pauls bay

Are like strokes of spearmint from the toothpaste tube

With the shimmering

White lines licked across the top.
When I dip below to find Atlantis

It burns my eyes

Just like I knew it would

And the pebbles whisper

‘It’s best to turn off the light,

Taste the depths’.
I try to knot my arms around the ocean,

Clinging on with calloused palms

In hope that it might stick with me

As easily as Colgate to the sink,

Before remembering

That a photograph is like

A flag without the breeze,

Or selfish sex without the tease.

A photograph

Is like outstretched hands that never meet –

The greeting incomplete,

A vapid

Senseless feat.
So I bob around

In the sapphire basin,

Admiring how entirely human it is

To feel sea salt on sunburn skin.