the narrow stepped couched dunes,

doused in a chiffon mist that lies in wait

for the unwary winged hopper or crawling louse,

offer the way to our saline convention where

I wave at the sea

and count a full seven

before it greets me, reciprocally,

with zealous rips and a curling lip I haven’t seen before

on this blandest of the eastern boards

and it roars with laughter as it swallows my children

but they scream right back:

come on

wetter, faster

and I Cnut, Cnut turn away

each foaming beer roller as they open the way

for my dancing stones to bounce straight back

and join the litter of forfeit limbs and hollowed homes

akin to sun baked chimera skulls of mythical birds,

as mermaids words curse their ever lost purses

through an outfall cough where their bronchial diamonds wink

before they shatter amidst the footpads that follow

the Red Bull and rag dolls, the ink branded brazen and bacon sizzlers,

in thrall of the sky’s apex predator, with their vermillion blush of a madman’s rush to the final dance as their dogs birth

their orphan logs to remind me just where we are