Begging: A poem 

The saline night grew like a wet beast 

With the coat of sea drawn back like 

a retreating battalion, its numerous opaque  

eyes frothing each crest like Halloween 

spirits rampaging the ink-blue darkness 

of a summer dusk. The spiky common gorses 

race-dodging fugitives to the sirens of  

the weak waves that splatter their signals to 

the incoming air, and together they make a 

cordon as if to catch vagrant criminals. 

But the damp neon street has only cornered  

the golden amber in the child’s eyes 

who pitchforked into the night cowers 

under the silk-thread luminescence of her hair 

and her chalky face cracks up with fear 

lowered like an ant to scent the wax of boots. 

And the spectator sees with the humility 

of shaky old blocks with their wordless 

yawning mouths. And years roll by like a cloudy 

sky, in one flaky blurred night.