Windwalking

Out of the house and into the wind.
Sand assaults skin with needlepoint stings,
rims half-closed eyes. I keep to the path
as my scarf tears away from me, hair knots.
To the wind my message is always the same:
I refuse to be annihilated, I refuse to be lulled.
From the cliffs I watch each falling edge
scatter glass seeds over shining furrows;
beneath, broad surges of white drawn back
into blue. Rebounding from rock, one wave
hurtles, with equal force, against another:
a fountain lifts to its flowering moment
above squidclouds of sand… I walk,
braced by salt, shriven by the wind.