they are so buff
the light the shadow
the definition of them
crowding to bulges skin cannot know
tempting the magician in all of us
to say – I know, ididthatonce.
but it would be a lie
because the way they gain weight
and sturdy their tendons
is octopus swivel territory
through a loop in the wind they are
parading until they need to cry
The horizon slopes
to the right
and the sky is palette-knife smooth
until the cumulous ripple-curls
to match the surf spume at their feet.
Five of them, their backs to the camera
on the glossy rock
balanced there
where the sea has washed and washed
with all its tides
the black basalt
and comes back at night
to inspect with waving fingers
the day’s effects.
They are looking down
except for the smallest;
he has his mother’s hand
and shyly lifts his eyes
to the nearest wave
that trembles
and glitters
with all the little waves on its surface
and the spin and drift of sea.
The rocks slope to the left,
deep shadows in their fault lines
that black out day.
The figures will take another step in a moment
careful of bare feet on whelks
or the slip of that fine-haired sea weed
or the next resound of surf break.
She is there on the cumulous
white light crisp like promises of rain
further from the sky where she wanders
at the break between shadow and its other.
There are wisps around her,
the credible tremble, the hunt onwards
for the next possible, the lightning strike
the storm in the space she breathes, there.
She moves in on wind gust, balancing on cloud-thread
like that, a dervish or a spindle, a whirring
the woolly pillow of cloud into the long drops
the watery light falls through her fingers.
The ribbed pattern of the wind is the brush of her fingers.
The long stroke of the sky
meditation of dropping, the luxurious water.
poemation 