We celebrate a decade of beaches
with a bottle.
Perfect, intact,
Hebridean-green worn smooth by the sea.
You present it to me,
filled with sand and slime,
like a maître d’ serving his finest wine;
your quick step back
acknowledgment that, not so long ago,
this would have been gifted with kisses.
I am choked with memories.
I attempt light-hearted thanks that misses the mark,
as you flick your hair (I’ve seen you
practicing in the mirror)
and turn back to the rocks
toeing seaweed as you go.
I see you,
hunkered, knees by your ears
forgetting, finally, that someone might be watching.
Your face, reflects back in the rock pool, you look past it
not seeing the new width and angles,
looking deeper than that.
You reach out,
lean over,
stretch further than you should…
and I want to call a warning
but I’m learning, slowly,
to trust,
to trust you know what you’re doing.
Still, my heart is higher and I’m already leaning to stand, to run
if you need me…
You don’t.
I can’t see clearly from here what you reached for
but from the arm’s length grip it’s a crab,
legs and arms flailing
like a startled new-born
scrabbling to find its place in the world.
I see you hold it up to your face,
close to your nose as you dare,
know you’ll be staring
in its eyes,
you used to say you could tell what they were thinking
just by looking.
Imagined monologues of sea-life the soundtrack to summers past.
You drop him in the bucket by your side,
Reach back for another.
I rub my thumb across the letters
barely there around the bottle base:
S C H W E P P E
Was this to cheer the birth of a baby?
The end of school?
A sunny summer evening?
A wedding?
Time?
A shout.
You’re jumping, arms in the air
celebrating a win
in a crab race you couldn’t lose.
No jeopardy, just joy.
Later, cosy round the fire,
drinking hot chocolate
you want to do cheers,
joking that soon it’ll be beers.
As you make your way around the circle
cheeersing, drinking,
I reach for the bottle,
still filled with slime,
clink, cheers
hold your eyes in mine,
pretend to drink.
And your smile.
I’d drink a thousand toasts to this.