The boots in the dunes

The white boots have their toehold in the dunes
a hallowed spot where windscour whips their heels
silk-sand laps at tongues and laceholes
bootmouths open to the sky
as though some Foreign Legionnaire
has stumbled to these Norfolk drifts
has thrown his kepi up into the air
let go his rifle and his pack
to plunge through sweeps of sand and marram grass
down to the mirage of the sea
to feel salt eddies cool his desert heat
to lave and soothe his blistered hands and feet
and leave his boots to Norfolk and the dunes
 

Peter Ualrig Kennedy

poem published in Est: Collected Reports from East Anglia, Dunlin Press,
2015, ISBN 978-0-9931259-0-4