and sift through night sand,
to remember the daytime picnic
the pimple of sandcastles,
is to search
a new, dark world
frilled by surf light.
Rigorous re-claiming
of shell, seaweed, seagull
is hardly illuminated
in puny battery glow.
The seawind is chanting
seawrecks, tidal waves
the teeth of sharkbitten flesh.
Crabs and jellyfish
no longer tickle and scurry
but take savage bite.
Yet still that torch
stains a mucous trail
of re-count, re-trace.
Later, as the seawind
discovers the caravan
and the salt slimes
the windows, my father
will bring back the lost doll
from the barbaric night,
and I’ll sleep, counting
the act as right
the titpple world back on its axis,
only realising now
the act
as heroic.