by Dean Schabner
it can’t be the sun or at least
it doesn’t seem so late and
low in the sky her light warm and gentle
even now the beach almost empty
people gone home and gulls gathered
hanging in the air little clouds gray and black and white
while along the water’s edge darting up and back
as the waves run darkening the sand and baring
the little clams white and yellow and purple
that tip up to dig themselves back in
but it’s the birds I mean the little ones
that run there that must be
plovers but they move too quick
to see what I should to know them
the shape and size of beak the color
of their wings where the white the black bands
ring their necks the males and the females
their subtlety as though their bodies
liquid or air as when giving myself
to the ocean they fly just over me
waves themselves as I would be
as I would give myself to you
— from Juniper Volume 3, Issue 1