North Reef, QLD
By Scott Thouard
Before teenage ambivalence
we'd time the change of tides
and start across a briar of shells
high stepping the welching sand.
My two trusting waders
side pulley each hand
as salt crust air holds
behind my eyes, widened
to the crocodilian rise
each lacerating rock
where the last cowlick of the sandbar
met the roiling waves.
Blithely, I turn us around
against the gritty snare
filled with plunging sand
and swishing shell grit.