Heaped into littoral garden rows,
glistening in fresh morning light -
pinkish and yellowish browns, boiled greens,
shimmer of latex - the frilled and tasselled
thicket seethes and twinkles each time
a wave comes washing in, while gulls
pick through the jumble of their rags.

Slowly, as the tide retreats,
they start to kipper in the sun,
cleaned off by flies, and now release
their stored fecundity, that brackish
saline stench, the ocean's flatulence,
which will insinuate itself,
wafting to every corner of the town.