My eyes are closed
Up the hill over the dunes

The man in the caravan park is blowing leaves 🍃 

I tuned into him ten minutes ago

Though I’ve got him on the down low

To my right two boys are shrieking and poking a helpless jelly fish

Marooned by the tide

I want to tell them to stop ✋ 

But that is their mothers job and she is lost in her cell phone

I can see all this in the one quick dart of eyes I allow

Once to the side

Once up

Into the crown of my hat

Which smells of straw

And offers a punctured view of a thousand pieces of blue sky

Scattered

And fractured

Sparkling bright

Like the ocean

My legs are tight

Burning

Slightly

I shift

It’s no good

I’m out of water 

And I’m hot

And a bit sticky

Icky

I shall leave the boys to poke at the hapless blue blob

And return later

As I shake the towel

Discreetly so as not to scatter sand everywhere 

I catch the eye of the boy with the stick

And stare

Just long enough to make him think about what he is doing

He leaves off poking

I smile

He smiles back

And the blob probably sighs under its burning pale blue back

They run away chasing the water instead

And the mother just watches her phone

All alone

On a beach of a hundred people

And I think I feel nearly as sorry for her

As I do for the blue blobby jellyfish

Lost in his mindless mess

Of stress

High on the beach 

Under the sun

Where the kids come to poke him

But he can’t run

Because he is useless

Without the ocean from whence he’s from