Wet Edge

The screen showed salt,

then stone, then that flat stretch of gray.

The camera lingered, almost a fault,

on the empty beach where the waves play.

And pull back. Always pull back.

The edge of the water, a white line drawn

then erased. The sand, a dark track,

wet with what the tide had spawned.

A low, guttural sigh of the sea,

never quite reaching, never quite done.

The cold air, a sharp clarity,

under a sky that never shows the sun.

It feels right, this distance.

To stand here, just on the brink,

to feel the spray, a fleeting instance,

and watch the whole vast thing sink

away, then rise.