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Discarded crisp pack skitters end-over-end

before me along the pavement,

gape-mouthed as a basking shark.

                                   And I recall

the thrill as those two fins,

tail and dorsal maybe a metre between,

parted the water beside our kayak;

later that day, mackerel shoals strobed

silver and dark beneath us, and the sea

seemed to quiver in delight,

the way my love’s skin would shiver then

beneath my lightest caress.

And the breeze calms

to the slightest zephyr, the glittering

bag drifts gently in its eddy

to rest in a backwater of leaves

and urban litter, both insignificant

and miraculous in this moment.