I
pale bodies chalking the water,
their gum-pink shoulders rolling
in the dark like celestial objects;
our nakedness, and the earth’s
lightning snaps like a blown bulb –
furious sky-god –
so those with their backs to the horizon,
are suddenly crowned: blazing aureoles,
wrists crossed on their tailbones
as if waiting for judgement,
handcuffed in awe.
half-crystallised, sharply inhaling, alarmed
that beauty isn’t peaceful, but shocking,
that we’ve crossed a line:
and we’d suddenly rather be on the shore,
where a fire burns on the sand
and nobody dreams
quite this big.
II
the curtain tore open
and showered rags around
our hoary moon-shadows,
and we stood, for the first time,
like matchsticks in the infinite
black water.
and the earth made clear
its groaning, its sickness,
its fury – impossibly close.
we’re cemented to our chest
in amniotic fluid
as the earth reveals itself:
rolling over, laid bare.
and we, the firstfruits,
stumble, dazed, to the shoreline,
groping for the light,
bearing the weight of ourselves,
of our opening.