Luna

Since it was Sunday in late December the sun perched softly behind a dark swirl - and the distant dust turned the last ray from red to pink well before the dainty fingers of her small hands could count to six The tide was ebbing but left lopsided lines of foam-beige brine surrounding crooked batons of driftwood settling for the evening - in wait of the dawn’s salty brush and the mermaid’s call that only the mullet could hear Sandpipers skipped across the scrawls where some spirited soul had neatly spelled the name Luna and etched a lazy heart in the sand made barely legible by the suckle of less than a half moon of sweet Gruyere Holiday lamps from the shops in the village, baptized by a light steam, lifted green and blue watermarks off the horizon toward the mangroves and left markings of indelible ink where crow’s feet tried to sleep and halfhearted whelk nestled as salt in recesses of aged eyes The scent of the sea was mild Then again just the thing to suit The keenness of the cilia that lined the inside of the only nostril that still behaved. And though the Mumps had left one ear utterly deaf I observed the pelican call This was neither the place nor time to breathe meekly. A wordless titter throttled my throat and I asked myself how life might be sounder Her lily white hand, half covered in sand touched the truss in my mind. Smiling out loud my deaf ear could hear her juddering blood - for she was totally (and wonderfully) blind