Charming Patterns
Powder-white sand rattles between flexing toes
like tiny, bleached avalanches.
The Australian sky, wide, taut, and impossibly blue
screens my field of vision in a blinding smear as
sea droplets evaporate on my body leaving salted
grains softly stinging.
I raise my five-year-old hand and closely examine its
withered skin from knuckle to nail.
The soaked ridges and puckered lines are as deep as
trenches, smooth as dunes.
Today the sun is savage.
In another ten minutes these charming patterns on my
palms will return to a dry and simply printed landscape.
I close my eyes and listen to the quaking of the surf as
the heat bakes me down to the bones.
Soon, I will follow the path of shells and seaweed back
down to the waves and again, disappear into the
churning foam, ready to transform my skin once more.
Copyright © Nick Ravenswood | Year Posted 2021
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