THE SEA WALL

Hyperbolic edge to the Ladybower bellmouth, 1935–1944. 
(Photograph by Peter Byrne 1991.) 
Found in Andrew Crompton's Three Doors to Other Worlds

The Sea Wall

The wall breaks and enters
the sea, who swallows
the barrier fragment
and slips through the hole like an arm
through a dress sleeve, and smoothes
and smoothes the sleeve to sand we stand on.

We die grain by grain.
How else to make salt
houses for all the creatures
who, as we cannot, go down and
down and open their eyes. 

-Melody S. Gee