you walk towards the water

pebble-footed

awkward

strip off your vinegar skins under

a cathedral sky

 

your toes feel it first

the cold I mean

and the stones shift like rosary beads

beneath your feet

 

you tack forwards

inexorably drawn

and with every step the ocean claims another inch

of your fiddle flesh

 

and the water ascends your

thermometer body

like mercury

cool and silvered

 

and the silvered sea erodes

and erases

channelling salt paths

into your baggywrinkle skin

 

you coast onwards

down a sun-bleached aisle

and your veins scupper their tired load

and the sea rushes in

silk cold

 

and the silk cold sea

awakens every dormant organ

and soaks

with her saliva brine

your liver gut and maw

 

by now you are fathoms deep

fathomless deep

edges and horizons blurring

 

and the silvered sea erodes

and erases

an exquisite invasion

and the cold devours your batten bones

and gnaws down on your cellular walls

 

you lie back

becalmed

surrender

to her salt assault

 

and adrift upon her currents

your driftwood limbs

 

disperse and shift

 

and your sea sponge heart

fills to bursting

 

in her frigid grip

 

and your bladderwrack hair

fans out about you

 

lifted by her undulations

 

and your periwinkle toes pierce

her perfect surface

 

wrinkling the mirror sky