Not keeping away from the sea

Not keeping away from the sea

Nikki Keana

Orange rises over the sea, meets

the brackened heath, the pool where

mosquitoes secrete their larvae.

This thin of morning spills down my spine,

the vast chill of it sings, summons magic.

Drag the cloth, pigment over board,

layer, collide the blues, cobalt, turquoise,

ultramarine, the pink of bleached thrift.

Erase, scratch, disappear the marks,

the umber too leaden to evoke ether.

Sea slips under me, salt washes my eyes,

cold stings my skin. The horizon tilts.

The tide pushes me, drags me, shifts.

Orange light rises over the sea, the brackened

heath, the pool. I clip the frames, one by one.

Strokes ebb and flow, indigo, vermillion,

titanium zinc, drying with the heat of day,

marks on board, abandoned now,

floating like gorse petals in a rock-pool