Estuary

It isn’t beautiful.
Neither are you.
But you pray
its sea-roughed Emperor
will somehow benignly
see you through.

        – Dorothy Porter ‘Caesarea’

1.

The Pacific raises
both muscular arms,
tucks in its chin
and somersaults
into the sand,
perfectly, again.

Red-capped plovers
and dotterels
stand still
as footprints.

Beside the sinew
and scratch of casuarina,
climb out of swamp
to this watershed
between the unsung loves,
sand and mud.

The sea a hard miracle,                                  
only the sky
has depth from here,
the horizon
endless
fathoms of blue
and billow.

2.

How many times, as a girl,
did I sit like this?
Balancing on banksia,
denting my soft flesh,
holding myself separate
to buy some time to think.

A caravan park in the seventies:
pigface, morning glory, spinifex
between my toes
like rash.  Escaping the family
tent to roam the dunes,
no sightlines, impossible
to police.  Looking for something
scarce, the bell of a private place?

I found nothing like that,
I punched a girl in the face.
My first and only time.
She was tough, she called my sister
a terrible name.  I recall the stand off,
the egging on by other kids,
the thrill feeling her nose
collapse against my knuckle
like a stood upon snail.

Bright with a different fever,
the day hit me like migraine,
a wall I could not walk through,
Jerusalem in the late afternoon:
heatstroke,
vomiting alone
in a strange bathroom.

I was a sweet
sucked on too long
flavourless and worn
all the sugar and honey gone.
I let myself
get spent.

Stand and wait for the blood
to come back to my rump,
for the tingle to leave my legs.

Two pied oystercatchers glide
over the shoreline
in formation.  Wing
tips almost touching.

I would like to acknowledge the Arakwal people of the Bundjalung Nation who are the traditional custodians of the land where the Byron Writers Festival is held.