TRAMORE STRAND Poem by Miriam Gamble

Can you hear it there
whispering anonymously, just
over the next hill
pebbles cast
like isolated truths, the wet
sand holding them in place
sea-shaped,
their water-weathered edges

and the far-flung ocean like a dark room
to be entered through the sun's
watery glaze
bare-bodied, with mouths
full of nothingness, of the salt-
scoured elementals of the tongue

We were only scavengers
amongst those sparkling particulars caught
in the wintry light
a gull's
effervescent dive, the indescribable smell
of wind-whipped skin
and though we
managed to forget the slow wade back again
through the heaving skirts
of marram grass
feet stumbling
on its ground-hooks, arms wheeling
like an acrobat's against the moon

when the dune-dust gathered round our torsos
something like believing
slipped away

some unremarkable honesty
that made us see each other as through glass,
that made us blink to see ourselves there.