O do not ask
if I am beach body ready.
Observe how the folds
of my stomach ripple
like the wind-pulled waves.
Feel these pale buttocks,
smoothed by the sand-grains
of time.
Note these milk-white limbs,
useless and stranded,
washed up whalebones.
Consider the tufts of hair
which sprout on my shoulders
like sea-grass.
And listen to the lapping
of my socks
at the shores of my sandals.
And you ask me
if I am beach body ready?
slow burning days drag by
as the smouldering fag ends of hours
turn themselves to ash
second-hand jigsaws
sleep smugly on dusty shelves,
uncontrite at their incompleteness,
next to a well-thumbed
Robert Harris and the fortnight
stretches like old laddered tights
evenings drab with scrabble
and the death rattle of yahtzee dice
provide no substitute
for videos of piano-playing cats
instagram selfies, status updates
and Lionel Richie memes
instead this, the buffering
and the suffering and the shutters
which rattle in the wind
on a beach in Bournemouth in ’79,
holidaying with some parents of mine,
i attempted to dig a tunnel
down to Australia
the project was a failure
but the memory of that day stayed;
i should have used a bigger spade
i had always
wanted to go on
a busman’s holiday
so i saved up
for ten years
and then
five holidays
came along
all at once
Brian Bilston 