Cuttlefish

Roland Leach

We were born by the ocean, knew its shifting face by wind and moon. Tracks through dunes, the yellow flowers of sour fig in season, blue-bottles

washed ashore like plastic toys, the white chalk holsters of cuttlefish. A perfect day was hot, still, with a heaving swell. We were

transgressive in summer, heroic and brash. The blue sky allowed us to conceive of anti-gods, thinking our parents’ gods

too pale, too quiet. Never reckless enough for our liking. We knew the shifting wind, fickle moon. We learnt the warm seasons,

and they were too brief. When winter came, we were halves of self, strewn along the beach like cuttlefish, whose beauty only seen beneath water.