TINDERBOX

Firewalker faith must be required

to hop this white-hot sand

and now all zones are tinged with fear

of sunburn or combustion.

 

We stretch naked in the dunes

until guards arrive on decency patrol,

ice-cream hawkers melt away,

persistent surfers finally desist.

 

The sea's an aquarium of coke cans

anyway, and plastic in the throats of birds.

Interpid snorkellers beware:

just man-made stuff to find down there.

 

December 2022, Dear Reader Poetry, Editor Charley Barnes.