Claire Malroux

Whitecaps surge in from some infinite distance Rocks, grottoes, clay stridencies beneath the storm Amalgams of sea-wrack and brownish moss Each tide pushes forth its flesh-antennae The persistent squid stretches its arms, wave-crests Cave in, everything gives way to sand Which silently drinks up the acid, cold red sweat Those children launched in assault against the waves How could they turn their heads Back toward those who've brought them this far To be taken even farther in their turn They passed though the crowd, laughing Or crying without telling the password They've passed, the ferret runs and runs Memory, the battlefield nurse, can barely Triage the rarest ones Whose heat shifts at the crater's edge Yet they give our trajectory Its dreamlike depth: the whole chain Coils up in our smallest cells And in a lifetime time annuls itself