Puka Hunting

Puka Hunting

by Philip Scott August

We comb the beach for pukas

we are fishers of shells bound

by love’s umbilical

as we sift, scratch, and dig for treasure

I go to one end

and she the other

meeting in the middle

we find ourselves children again

and blend as friends and lovers

we make a competition of it

and I declare the lead

yet very quickly the duel is lost

to awe, and the exaltation of discovery

she, me, we, sand, sun and surf

the light of the eternal tryst

a fusion in time unbridled