the foundling

a foundling sang within the dunes, and she stuttered
in his grey-blue eyes, tossing castanets aside
buying seasalt from the hermit crabs, to shimmer

on her lips, bribing buttery flies to pay some small
amount of homage, whispering gris-gris ballads poorly
harmonized, to bewitch and magick what days have

wrought, have meddled in her enchantment, and she
bartered with old trader john to redeem one hour,
given for a trinket and a whiskey song, for though

her samba spins a lonely pirouette, she still tastes
the fantasy spun by wailing of the gulls, and bends before
young winter's thievery, like any green and supple

lass, so dissembles day's last failure, so beglimmers
what sillied hope still clothes her, and she strays into these
sand locked tunnels, tossing her falsettos one more time