Angela Cooke
Beach in the Rain
The stones were white like duck eggs.
Or huge, speckled, with monsters inside
you thought (most likely, dinosaurs).
So many crabs in the rivulets
along the sea's edge - tiny, transparent
like fingernails. They lay on their backs,
no choice but to wait for seagulls
to rip into them.
But you, intent on rescue,
skipped like an elf amongst the stones
flipped the creatures over, buried them safe.
You found ten, twenty, then smiling
you said 'I could still be doing this
in a hundred years.'
Hard rain turned our faces red.
You wrung out my jacket.
I dried your eyes with my hair.
'Like Mary Magdalene' you said,
'But with her, it was feet.'
The sand sucked down on our shoes
tried to keep us there, then lost
our footprints, disowned us -
confirmed us in our strangeness.
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