The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Reacquaint by Allison Thung

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Pebble

Further to the last time
we break each other’s hearts,
I go alone to the sea,
picking my way through
sunbathers at Killiney Beach
until I find solitude
beside a chain link fence.
By the water,
summer does little to
shatter the bone chill of the
sea breeze that seeks refuge in
every gap between my skin and
already unseasonable trench.
In lieu of the unsaid words
I should have shaken out of
my coat pockets last night,
I shake sand out
of my sneakers,
pressing a bare foot
against a glittering pebble
I want but will not take.
Overhead,
a lone gull concurs.

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