WORMCASTS

Does your sandcastle ever quiver? Does its flag shake and disappear?

I live in the sand on the beach. I died here.

That would be me doing those things. I rattle the pearls in oysters as you make love in the dunes. My gas fingers might flick sand in your eyes but I have no knowledge of what you are doing. I died too young at the hands of my witched mother who buried my body on the shore.

When the storm clouds boil I will wail my lament. The rains will make a stage on which I dance, rising at last from the sand, my cell.

The curse I am burdened with is the longing mew of the gulls. The sad pipe of the oystercatcher. The haunted howl of the loon.

Like the sea's flirtation with the land my sentence will remain unceasing. A walker of silt. A singer of glass. A sleeper in razorshells and the marram grass I blow to mimic the winds that go wherever they wish.

There are others here. Dead pirates and scurrillous hands who paid the price of landing on this beach. No fanfare for them. Just the bloody handshake of their swift demise and the sorrowful melody of a new dune.

Not everyone is good. There are dark hearts on this beach. Sable malcontented souls, conniving and clandestine. Evil.

These can harm those who wander above. Those who falter in the darker nooks. Delicate they are not as they scuttle their pulses with dreadful finesse, emerging from caves and slips with mad intent to leave their crypt by jacking those alive.

I slithered off for I cannot watch the mudded gurgling as strays are pulled below the drifts. Like cows they moan and wriggle but soon fill up and join the rest of us damned things trapped with the worms and fleas.

I sometimes hid from the dark ones in wormcasts. My finger touching the toppermost coil. You may have stood on me unawares, your foot momentarily tickled as I turned to dive. I would count your retreating footsteps before I went below.

Beyond the sludge where breathing stops I often ride the lugs as they nudge their way to where the air is salted sweet. Like dolphins of the mud it is my single joy within these walls of grit where I shall live forever.

I may kiss your soles as you amble over my sky of grains and dream of sweet release and salvation.