They tumble and drift in the current
undulating spines moving
over bare sand like seaweed
the scrimshaw of skeletons.
Their long snouts suck in shrimp
and sea-lice
outlines of their bodies
ringed with bony armour
gossamer appendages (fronds)
an ornate camouflage.
Smaller than a tea-cup
they are bizarrely beautiful.
Giant pink boulders
algae-stained
holes burrowed out by generations
of black sea-urchins
meet this psychedelic highway.
*
The smell of banked-up drains
at the far end of the beach
fractured coke cans
waterlogged plastic
the silent predators.
Things manmade rust and implode.
*
We are born of dragons, an anachronism
the sea's teeth.
The sea sucks at its own edges
like tattered lace
the ocean's gasp
Quartet for the End of Time.