Some days you have to walk a long way out

to get beyond the shallows

 

Does anyone remember their first time?

Skin in the sand, footprints of strangers

 

The factory smoke behind the dunes

a second cousin of cloud and thought

 

Active metal flows down to the service road

night shift blurs to morning, the sun breaks 

 

There are a lot of spurned dog shits today 

care extends as far as one can't be seen 

 

The Jehovahs aren't up on pamphlet Hill

perhaps the world is ending in new ways 

 

Industry creeks bleed out on the shore

it’s too flat to worry about the state of the world

 

Lately, I've been watching a lot of shark videos 

underneath great whites are apex dreams 

 

If a shark turned up in our urban cafe habitats

(but they won’t, they've got enough on their plate)

 

Rock platforms extend the ways we walk on water 

today I leave them to oystercatchers and terns 

 

There is always a piece of driftwood on its own

let's merge with it, today it is too damp to burn 

 

Footnote: this poem was created using the Double act constraint as the starting point.