Sandmother

by Andrea Turner

swaddles me in glass-starred grit
rocks me in her suck and
surge and I see the sky

blink in the salt-pools of her
eye, this is the stuff and
silt of ordinary day

dreams, I sigh.
But here’s the warning -
if you’re sinking do not

fight the grasp and pull,
splay like a starfish
breathing the sea. See

if my mother, if my human mother were
if she were to come
that close, she might

place her ear to my lips and hear
     away but remember, away
  but remember me
away