202 Autumn 2011

tidemark

Jane Gibian

you begin here: part of a distant beach
missing its home, a doll’s saucerful
of the cleanest sand sleeping in your ear

grown into something with glairy edges,
a tidemark advancing and receding less
with the disintegration of arctic sea ice

affirmed when you accidentally cut
the pale baby capsicum forming inside
its dark red mother, the centre of a world

to turn around: beneath the surface
dark rocks loom in the glassy water,
further out, mutable peaks of white froth
tease your eyes with dolphins

where you end: that part of the beach
pining for home, and at the centre
an instrumental continuo around which
all other voices circle and rub