Nereid

There is a crowd of bodies
over the sand. The sea whisks
itself into a bad conversation,
as I count the tiny grains
beneath my toes. I glance up,
wince at the glaring bikini
tops in blue and red, count
migraine pills from a bottle,
stung bright with the sun.
There are children basted,
wrapped up in cotton shorts,
roasting in the shallows. Splayed,
tangled in a web of foam,
they are prey for jellyfish
or tenderised for waiting
barracuda, not watched by
the white loaves of pot-bellied
weekenders on the dry shore.
I make steps, moulding what
could be glass into perfect
casts for sculptured shoes,
following my burnt knees
with damp white feet, leaving
a trail from the forest of bare
pasty flesh, along the edge
of the shallows, up to where
the real sculptures are.
Here the rocks have chosen
to drop their ice cream cones,
assumed poses more becoming
of demi-gods or the off-cuts
of lunatic architects. Far
behind my back, I still hear
the complaints of a desert-full
of bulging troglodytes, up-
rooted from their crab burrows
and exposed to light, guarded
only by their waist-band fat.
I look down into the pool,
where microbes and crustaceans
dance and stumble. Suddenly,
before my eyes, the spirit
of these sands appears, only
to toss her brown curled locks
into the rock pool, only to
smile the sand out of my eyes
and lay a hand upon my
coral figure, tame my collar
bone and cool me like a statue,
only to offer me a single
wet glance from her lips,
and place a pale pearl foot
in my hands for me to kiss.