at the corner of the coast we leave behind

a crossroad of island & mainland

walk the jetty with tea & sandwiches

settling on a narrow shore 
a stray sentence begins & ends in the

margins of rock & sand,

grouped pine trees hug the foreland,

tufts of grass filter down on limestone
Penguin Island is Joie de Vivre,

bottled-nose dolphins, sea lions, the informed

reveal of penguins as seabirds who cannot fly,

who shy away like full stops from poems  
children demand their attention, a noisy

thrumming persistence — we walk

facing the sun with office workers, musicians

the star attraction, pairs huddled into trellises of rock
rangers answer questions with torchlit marks

fish? mammal? the forces of people

in an open cage? such forces chatting on mobile phones

the hubbub of sinewy language in a factory thrum

— people — finding at last a pair nested in close

a narrow window compressed into rock – so alone! 
the beginning is an end to their search

shadows tilt on tiny faces, the cave an arbitrary height

forces dark silhouettes further in —  two creatures

inviting clear reasoning for tourists, to walk back along the shore

to a swell of waves on the western side, beach & tarp,

a swim & the mind’s industry churning thoughts of

we’ll catch a wave before lunch