his sister Jeanette had called out “Wig! Wig!”
and made smoothing-down hand-motions
to her own hair. At the time I thought it was a code;
a handy, secret message between family members
for when hair needs attention and there's no mirror.
I'd been quite taken with the whole idea
and how with hands more used
to handling timber logs, he'd flattened
down the leaping strands like a bear
using its paws to swipe at fish.BLUECLIFF
At low tide, two holes, close together; comic-strip eyes;
snake bites; the clue to dig fast, shovel liquid sand,
tunnel down until your fingers find the ridged crescent;
the double-lipped, bi-valve that confirms: toheroa!
Before the next big wave arrives we must establish tenacity
and keep it as seawater surges over us, its freezing prick
of salt-and-sand swooping into our boots; foaming up
to our armpits; the sand ripping our fingertips: it's grim
with nature giving the toheroa a foot's advantage to rocket
into the space of sand. But if we weather the wave's suck back
and in the lull scrabble down deeper and wider, we can add
to the acre of exploded potholes, plonk our trophy into a bucket
of weighty shellfish already gasping, their chubby tongues protruding.
Our tally reached, it's time to travel home, miserable with earache
inside the Vauxhall Velox that rocks us away from the sea's cold shock,
the ache and brunt of which we can still feel thumping in our elbows