Here it is

It’s at this point you remember

You were always a lazy swimmer

The wave is coming

To break you, and all you can think to do is

Stare and make some internal comment

At its voracious inevitability,

Instead of kicking

Feel it dragging you back to powerlessness

While you were half-turned,

Watching your childhood float past

Your face thrashes the seaweed sand-pit

Tumbled by tidal giants

Sunward and gasping

Don’t look to them for help

You wanted this beach deserted

You wanted this familiar defeat

Welcome the jelly-flesh rashes

The sunburnt tongue,

The scorched eyes

It’s the same argument you love to have with yourself

And lose.