Like an exotic woman
Flashing plumage
For a mate she’ll never take
The coast is beauty, unforgiving.
Indifferent to the good children
Marveling at the starfish
In the bristling tidal pools,
Mocking its own beauty
Choked thick with seaweed.
Wave after wave cascade
A gorgeous wall of glassy blue
Thrashing like a fist
Heartless foam on sharp sand
Lurking undersea
The currents keep the seals away
Hills stuffed with scruff of trees
No traction sliprock hike to speak
As birds gawk from faraway stones.
Squint into the wind
At the fleeting phantom unseen otter
But can’t tell the dolphins
From the weeds.
