The Burrows

It's a long walk from Appledore
over a narrow bridge and dusty road that goes to the dump
cut across sheep-cropped bright green grass
with it's decorations of rabbit-droppings and sheep-shit
avoiding bushes of spiked grasses with knobbly
crowns. On the dunes, there, a secret from others

Setting down on a tartan blanket
Mum carefully opens a cheap blue hamper
reaches into it's warmth with delicate hands and extracts
immaculate sky-blue plastic plates, knifes, forks
sweet tomatoes, crisp lettuce
boiled eggs, slippery whites hiding dry yellow hearts
from a tartan flask she pours lukewarm tea
into dark-blue plastic mugs. Lick sandy tide-line

"I'm the king of the castle
You're the dirty rascal" - hot sand
scrapes our small brown bodies with
hollow shells, bleached-white skulls
avoid the sheep-shit and spikes of marin grass

Hours later, running down to the shore and confront BIG:
wade out until the sea creeps past knees
- sharp breath , suck stomach in -
then swirl with surf, suck and spit,
back and forth, grain and limbs...
as waves break and break,
which way, anyway, no way but
splutter skywards to a bright blue

A big yellow chopper flies past -
Wave! Wave!
A helmeted figure waves back.
Floating on nice bright waves
a solitary plastic inflatable ring
bounces on nice bright wave