On The Beach

They lay long side to their love
              sand       an elbow hard in the rib
                      sea soft and vulnerable

they clutched and twined fingers
            easing the pain    tell of the time
                      when lovers lay in the sand

memory tells him he counted from ten
            wind graining abacusand
                      the sand has subtracted since then

if they were children
           they both might have cried
                    their child-like castles built in the sand

for sea swollen waves met and crashed
          and they drowned with their hopes
                    as they lay in the splash

©  Dick Russell, 2012