Lovers' Leap

The crumbling lip of cliff — sandy loam, white-flecked with bits of shells held together loosely by a threadbare mat of wild grasses— tips seaward brokenly, sagging on a limestone hinge. Nettles grow like lost and ragged flowers on a sifting ledge that trickles crumbs of earth deep into a concave vault of sea -mist. Here is a resting place for gulls who stand on wide-webbed feet and listen solemnly to wind and trickling sand and hissing spray. Here is a place for lovers' last long argument, a narrow place for pacing, a half-round stone for resting on, a dark and grinning crevice, widening to draw the hot dry eyes, and a yielding sod that frightens tragic youths who trod too near the edge.