at the fullness // of the fat on // skin’s red surfaces

There the sea sat
and took a day off.
Why shouldn't it?
It's been a long year.

Once rote, once spoke,
sailor-boy's sails billowed
but now he sings
"If I had a boat".

Where was her touch,
her holy communion?
An anemone coronaria
is a flower from

Isreal, a poppy but
black at its centre
with a white outline -
its white teeth

around how it kisses
deep the bees and
its stem reaches up
to colour its lips.

at the fullness // of the fat on // skin’s red surfaces

In communion the sea saw
the faces of the
lipstick waves
colouring the boats

and it sighed happy
at the fullness
of the fat on
skin's red surfaces.

The sea happy,
the boy swam;
the anemone smiled,
the ships sung.