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.