i
This text comes, and, in the office,
where I am what I do and the small
things I do seem largely important.
I’m not sure I want to, want to go
in a convoy of big laughter, chasing
ravenously along skinny coast roads,
for the tide, to stand in the loud
cold crew, stuffing good bodies
into thick wetsuits full of old smells
of rubber and sea, to race beach
in my bare feet, stinging and bright
with its million particles of sand,
hilarious, urgent to forget myself.
And I’m easy to forget, little I,
carried in the great, cupped palm,
fun-sized, body slung out by a sea
that slices at tiny shores, held up,
pressed down, gathered and cycled.
Again. Hopeless with small laughter,
wrung out by the wheeling tide.