There’s a singular sting
To the 6am swim
Early starts afford short-term immunity
An aurorean pass to the avian community
All my bobbing and floatery
Is gazed upon by a Laridae coterie
My unfeathered companion: my towel on a rock
My extremities’ numbing stands in for a clock
I think of the dentist as I’m falling and rising
It’s this beach I conjur when he’s anaesthetising
Strokes grazing the safe, sandy shelf
The fleeting dominion of a beach to myself
The hill will soon spill streams of nets and of noise
Now it’s just me and the sea and the gulls (and the buoys)
Jemima Laing 