I wish you'd stop talking and let me see
This memory
Barefoot and podgy beside the sea
On the safe and warm, orderly cement
Near the blue public loos where the paper's like card
And the now-unwanted sand is brushed off, cast down
To settle between cracks in a seemingly smooth surface.
Far off the sea forces us to breathe for at least an instant,
The sun hints at flossy horizons we do not see, we do not see
We take in only the sound of the gulls, and
The tinkling ice cream van where
An invisible man
Stretches out Mr Whippy-laden hands.
Here we batter our goods,
And read the news around our dinners.
Our hair, coarse,
Carries the salt and wind indoors, we
Love the green and rusting edges, we
Find pebbles, still warm,
And proclaim all of it a nursery-ish heaven.
Here I have not aged,
The sky, uncluttered, speaks
Only of ease,
Nothing yet complicated:
Little known, little missed
All baked in heat.
And when each time I return,
The memory leaves me frivolous,
Jaunty, naughty and sun-kissed.
