tidemark


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

Jane Gibian

Jane Gibian is a poet and librarian whose new collection of poetry, Beneath the Tree Line, will be published by Giramondo in 2021.

More by Jane Gibian ›

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