She Loves Me

Egret-like you shuffle
through the incoming tide
white bony knees
bleached with age
their own landscape
familiar

Cautiously so as not to
spill a drop of the sea
over the edge of the shore
you distance.

Hoisting your hips
over the dinghy edge,
you instantly lighten in years
and ease of movement,
resembling in a wave beat
the slip of a girl you once were.

Threading through
the gull strewn mud flats
bobbing down the serpent channel
my longing should tether you to
the shore as you strain seaward

You turn in my direction
and wave
dispatching your love
across the tide.