Anderson’s Bay
For Penelope Todd
The inlet’s skin glistens,
taut surface blown like blue milksmall fleets of light –
copper-scaled fish –
dart and shimmer.A riroriro trills:
the air’s fine fibres
pluck and hum,
urge us, lift your gazethere's some new arrival
seabirds circle it
in a sharp white crown of callssun pours to the swimming curves
as if to the harbour’s pupil, sight’s centre.Who is it that flips, turns,
bucks and skims?He draws a comet’s tail in fiery ripples,
writes chevrons, loops, scudding hieroglyphs;the spine rises, dark and lissom
powerful and lithe in a solitary, subnascent dance.Across the sea’s inlet
along the mind’s fibres:
joy, or a sea lion.