Smile

There has been a wild thrashing,

a water’s edge panic

and now this man,

with whom you have smiled and sung

and slept and eaten and swum,

lies unconscious, half-drowned

from grappling with the sea.

His life teeters on the edge of a decision,

his fading mind wandering

towards a clouded cliff

and you crouch there at his senseless side

pawing at the clammy body

in a passionate desperation

to claw him back from

the watery sucking in his lungs

to drag him back to this

gritty scene where sand

grinds between your hands and his

greying flesh.

But this is a holiday beach

and the moment

catches the attention of the Bugle photographer

who all afternoon has been

combing the beach for local colour.

She is already constructing a caption,

an alliterative appliqué,

as she raises her SLR beneath her sun-visor

and snaps the taut moment,

crystallising the image

within the expert beat of her eye.

And despite your anxiety,

your crass flailing to revive,

to re-engage the man with his breath,

you are conscious of this

sudden unexpected distraction.

You look up

as the shutter clicks,

and flash your applewhite teeth in a

dutiful smile.