Night Beach (Poetry)

Tonight, the tide wanders in —
trawls up the beach between smooth-towered rocks,
kicking at stones — curious as a small boy in an empty alley
who loiters late, turning over debris,
picking through the day’s leftovers,
seeking out the broken and the strange.

There are voices — wind heckles, querulous with cold,
and the sea answers, its halting stammer measured
in a shu-shu-shush of waves
and harder, rolling vowels,
the pebbles heavy in its mouth.

Their talk is gusty — air and water dialogue in tongues
desultory, then rising to a passionate exchange —
a sing-song opera with encores and, all night long,
the sea tells tall stories, quiets the loutish wind —
hears it sigh, exhausted in the dawn.
Grey-blue, the beach lies soothed and washed for morning
as the sea creeps away, murmuring,
going over and over its lines.