All at Sea

Satya Dash

          (At An Bang Beach, Hội An, Vietnam)

While you’re busy looking at the sea,
the glint of the horizon architecting
slow cooked dreams in your eyes,

it can happen that

you forget to notice the waves at your feet,
now soaking your toes like
unsuspecting islands caught in a
hurricane.

On looking down, the waves are receding
with coital sway,
atoms of sand sliding for a pleasurable second
before being displaced to another resting place.

Maybe this is what a shore is made of – resting places
strung together like pale moons on thin thread,
hanging like tantalizing tears –
refusing to fall,
yet taking comfort in the
unbridled promise of
eternal dangling.