One Night Stand

Skinny-dipping off Seaford Head

in the ripening sun.

Bobbed hair and a giggle

stripping off the night,

calling me to follow,

white breasts firm and smooth

as wave-sucked rocks,

a slender back begging

to be played from neck

down to where wavelets

make her tip-toe and

water laps tight curls.

Shingle has shifted a bay length

since, the chalk cliff retreated

an eroded

lifetime.

What her name was I never knew.

But I remember the ripples in the water.