Carol Ann Duffy — Beachcomber

If you think till it hurts you can almost do it without getting off that chair scare yourself within an inch of the heart of the prompt of a word. How old are you now? This is what happens - the child and not in sepia lives, you can see her; comes up the beach alone; bucket and spade. In her bucket, a starfish, seaweed, a dozen alarming crabs caught with string and a mussel. Don't move. Trow. Go to the sound of the sea, don't try to describe it, get it into your head; and then the platinum blaze of the sun as the earth seemed to turn away. Now she is kneeling. This is about something, Harder. The rеd spade scooping a hole in the sand. Sеa-water seeping in. The girl suddenly holding a conch, listening, sssh. You remember that cardigan, yes? You remember that cardigan. But this is as close as you get. Nearly there. Open your eyes. Those older, those shaking, hands cannot touch the child or the spade or the sand or the seashell on the shore; and what what would you have have to say, of all people, to her given the chance? Exactly.