Sandboy

Sandboy.
Full-grown almost-child
wanders endless nameless beaches
haunts my dreams, half-thought-filled spaces.
Innocent dust-pale phantom
of dappled wrack-entangled caves
fishboned feet scour shell-studded tracks
as you traverse the glittering plain.

The teasing sun
burnishes you into your summer colours.
Your bare back egg-speckled,
freckles dust neck-shoulder dip
where feather-light I plant a kiss.
Copper dancing in your hair
mimics your flitting words, your light heart.
The soft-foamed sea rushes to greet you
immersed in swathes of vague green-blue-grey
the element of your birth.

You know no cage; the horizon is your boundary.
Lean, epicene, in all your lissom grace
your pure drenching goodness heals me.
Love, you are no merman, no sweet en-conjured myth.
Now I gather you in the enveloping circle of my arms
warm solid surf-sheened limbs
those eyes such globes of sea and shifting sky
and kiss audacious salt from your tender lips.