Melissa

Melissa was wearing a tangerine dress
patterned with daisies, kicking her legs over
the cliff’s precipice;

ice cream melted down the sides
of her fingers as the sea lapped the
rocks below her.

Her mother was nearby, and had
just briefly touched the shoulder of
a stranger,

whose smile creased his swarthy
cheeks as he gazed at his reflection
in her sunglasses.

Melissa hummed lazily along with a
busker’s flamenco and tossed her ice cream
cone into the ocean -

she watched the gulls flock and dive down
after it, until they were just cavorting
grey blurs below.

Melissa’s mother grinned when the stranger
told her she was beautiful, and nodded
coyly

when he asked her if it was her daughter
sitting on the cliff’s precipice, in
the tangerine dress.

She introduced herself as Marta,
and followed him to the bar near the cliffside
for olives and wine.

They chose the only table left outside,
and she looked round for her daughter
for the final time.

Above them, the gulls were circling
as the clouds dispersed, and the sun
began to subside.

Below them, there were daisies.
Lost in the slow murmur
of the tide.