Something You Can't Retain Poem by Mark. A Heathcote

As apt as cupping hot sand at low tide,
each grain clinging to the heat a moment longer.
The more you squeeze,
the more it sifts from your grasp —
life's a sandcastle.

A slide show of childhood in a photograph album,
that finishes on an empty slide.

Something you can't retain —
as slippery as an amber bar of Pears soap,
wet and bubbly, full of fizz—
like a champagne bottle uncorked
when two glasses clink together,
without breaking.

Laughter squeals loud, on
the brink of profanity,
then laughs doubly loud
for having set the other off,
unreserved, from the belly.