surrender sweet and give and take

             










               BESIDE THE SEASIDE


  You wouldn't say that she "submitted." No,
  whatever prompted her was something new
  and docile not at all. Perhaps it had to do
  with the short turf, the white cliff edge, the slow
  cloud promenade, the surge and thud below

  as each fresh wave broke down. So, anyway,
  touch, tremor, nakedness all made good sense
  to her, quite suddenly, and down she lay
  and smiled, and helped him to forget the tense
  first panic, meeting not the least defense.

  And afterwards, she begged a cigarette,
  lazed on her back, and beamed back at the blue
  sky, blameless. He was dumb. More vehement yet
  the sea beat up against the cliffs, and threw
  its whopping slogs into a cave that drew

  the sinewed swell out of a foaming sleeve
  and sucked it in, to—like one heaving block
  of quartz—explode: boom hollowly; and leave
  in skittery files licksplittling through the rocks,
  till the next wave recruited them, and shocked

  itself to spume, finding passivity
  exceeded penetration. He watched (while she
  lay with her skirt around her hips, and smiled
  as at a dutiful, obliging child)
  and felt the strangest pity for the sea.








                     William Dunlop












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