Necessity Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

It was late afternoon when they found her (at first thinking
she was asleep)
leaning in a scooped hollow against the bare bones of an
upturned skiff
near the rocks: high tide had pushed her dress up past her
midriff,
but gentle water, only centimetres deep, was now stroking
her feet.

Her one hand moved in the shallows, aimlessly caressing
the sand,
the other lay purposefully still by her side, stiff
against the tilting weight of her body as if
a short sleep in a shady spot had been carefully planned.

It was by the caressing of her hand that they divined
she was not asleep. And they remembered she had gone
with her father (no other boats would) well before dawn
onto a sea which, in that north-west wind, was not kind.

Necessity had driven them beyond the boundaries of reason
or skill (endless hours caged in a gale) to search
for a stray shoal, but they had strayed out of reach
of the shore in the brunt blow of the season.

The shock was the rigor mortis of surprise
(or expectation?) on her lips and in her eyes.