I have flown
a wide open ocean
where waves break
and boil like crested
terns in a rookery
I have flown
a sweeping plain
where grasses sway
on the breeze like a school
of silver mackerel

I am a lone sandpiper
   patrolling
an empty shoreline
perhaps a thousand miles
from any I know
   wondering
can this bank of wind
swept sand keep me safe
from the memory
of your watery embrace

Gregory Piko
(Verity La, 6 July 2016)