Dust be your saviour under the conjured soil.
                    —Thomas¹

Stitched in rivulets,
     a scratch of tear sheds
     its bettering, melts
     a path of wear, threads
     silk lettering, tells,

as crushed shell does, sand
     has a way of trust,
     of scrubbing as thrusts
     rush without telling
     what tidal endures,

that, in erasure,
     when water whispers,
     its pull ensures rust
     never forgets how,
     for so long as it

held form, that shell’s hold
     sweltered with cargo
     warm surf devours whole,
     dust once, again, since,
     from a pearl returned

this getting over performs
     its ritual swarm,
     surrounds in loss turn
     waiting for toss, toes
     remorseless as gods

ape seals, cross themselves
     as they wrinkle knobs,
     this beach conjures up
     with such awful walk
     his weeping yours stops.

__________
¹Dylan Thomas, “I, in my intricate image”, Part II, Stanza 4, Line 6 [Stanza 10, Line 60 overall], in The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: Original Edition: Introduction by Paul Muldoon, published at New York by New Directions Publishing Corporation in 2010; page 39.