Starfish

On Thirteenth Beach
Some loll in corners, in recovery from
louche lifestyles. Others, draped on stones,
image a wise passivity: five-point
mystics practise the art of stillness, ponder
the enigma, "As above, so below.'
Pink and yellow arms peep from ledges
or frankly overlay one another.
In the most intimate embrace of all,
gourmets cloak prawn or crab, kidnapped oyster —
each back a sensuously rippled sea.
Travellers glide, ghostlike, on swirling tubes.
Those time fails become blue jelly
on the rock shelf nourished, shaped by, breakers:
a maze of water-gardens inlaid with starfish.