Fresh from Salsa.

My mother and her sister with their children, Scarborough 1990.

Not one of us was dressed for the summer wind,
all hippy skirts and billows with our hair caught in our mouths.
They weighted the blanket with their own selves
and secretly admired each others' body parts and underwear
revealed by mischievous gusts of sea wind.

We were genetic opposites, this cousin and I, and well aware
of our mothers' shame. In a moment of doubt
and faced with a rocky stream we remember as smooth,
we turned the distance from our mothers into an excuse
and tucked our skirts into our knickers. We got our whole selves
wet and squealed stopping just before the waterfall.

Walking up later, our dresses wet through, only the dog
was still carefree in the breeze, her fur parted at her flank
and flowing like fields of corn. Our mothers covered us
in towels with their own skirts firmly tied, and we ate eggs
looking out to the wind-tossed sea.