Brigitte Poirson writes

LOW TIDE

Wave by wave, 
The retreating streaks of swooshing mud

Have licked the light off the shore.

Love by love, 
The forceps of time  
Have given birth to turbid silence.

Second by second, 
The sphincters of the lunar sphere 
Have sucked the earth dry.

Rank by rank, 
The shoals of fishy hopes 
Have sunk, stuck in muck.

In the middle of everywhere, 
Past God,  
You shuffle words through the mushy mire 
Of this swamp.

Low tide. 
No hide. 
The future is foreclosed 
On the foreshore.

Yet, 
Within the muffled, stiffening stillness of the dusk, 
Through the mucous pus, 
The vicious, viscous slush, 
Slowly,  
In the subliminal struggle of the flush 
Against the mush, 
A lush gush 
Gains attraction. 
The slime simmers 
In a distant shimmer, 
A frail shiver 
Foreboding a new flood 
That will surge and submerge  
And merge silt and sea.

It sure will cleanse shell, shore and soul

For a whole half-night 

Of frenzied, fleeting fluidity…