Petite Mort

I miss my sea —
the foam that welters against the rocks
like frantic fingers that cannot hold themselves back,
the sun that grazes the sand
and scalds the feet,
stokes the wanting — that which smoulders
beneath the skin like buried embers.

The skin that ripens into darkness
like the evening yielding itself,
the warm wind threading through the nostrils
and steeping the chest like swallowed tobacco smoke.

The cheek pressed against the briny arm
— the scent of salt and of human —
and the one open eye upon the surface
of the sand that sighs and shimmers and shivers
like a quickened breath.

The shadow of the cap on dark hair
that drinks the sun as it draws the gaze,
casts a tessellation of shattered light
across the cheeks and nose
like a tattoo the day inscribes and night undoes.

Children build sandcastles at the shore,
unwitting — as one is unknowing
when one is still unbidden —
as you build them
in the becalmed mind of summer.

The parched beach finds its life
and the sun descends into the earth, sa petite mort,
sweetly, as on certain nights.

The tongue moves like an innocent
across lips that prickle with salt,
the sweetest torpor chains the senses,
now disarmed — surrender without battle.

And the chest and the belly bear the reddish marks
of stones slicked by the spent body,
as though wrung out by a night
that festers beneath the skin
and seethes still.