The ocean is so different here
more brown than blue
opaque and thick
as steamed milk
seafoam raking
each stone
in froth and film.
It does not sate
the thirst for
my Salish Sea.
I could drink
the viridian lip
of the waves
their ripples mapped
like lines eroded
into skin; the fibrous edges
of driftwood rank
with brine and crab shells
hollowed by crows and seagulls.
I could drink that coast
until my hands swell
my stomach distends and sloshes
and the salt puckers my body.
—
‘Dover Strait / Dallas Road Beach’ was published in 2016 as part of the UEA Undergraduate Creative Writing anthology, Undertow.