I find a foothold before the huge slab hits,
hoist myself up, foam spurring bare heels.
For a moment, I’m lost in a murmuration of spume,
chalked hands pale through the wave’s ghost.
I thread the headland path with careful steps,
a silent speck trembling through the sea’s white hiss.
Somehow I hear them, bubbling under
the seagulls’ prehistoric shrieks.
Their strange sonar pulls me to another place:
the crackle of moorland brown with sun,
a farmhouse roof that slants in every dream.
I wake thirsty, drenched in salt;
drain their echoes from an empty glass.