Alice, beached

I'm back on poetry again on my OU course - hurrah! I've missed it.  Our first exercise is to imagine ourselves into a fictional character,  and to write 5 verses of 5 lines on specified subjects eg what do their hands look like,  what will they be doing tomorrow.  Then rearrange the verses until they make better sense.  

I chose Alice in Wonderland, and placed her on a beach, pondering how it feels to be small,  and then tall.

My nails are small again today, 

Nails like tiny pink clamshells

Caught on the fronds of my fingertips, 

With that slight, salt smell of the waves. 

It must have come from the walrus. 

My dress is drowning me in monstrous folds, 

Flapping around my shrunken body,

Trapping dwindled arms and legs inside.

Like an over ambitious hermit crab

I dare not seek one smaller. I'll need it when I grow.

Is it better being small, neat, petite, trim,

Delighting in the world's hidden details?

Or standing tall, revelling in the view,

From a head held high, lanky legs standing firm?

Whenever I'm one way, I wish I were the other. 

Coarse, heavy sand grains slow my walk along the shore, 

Past tangled blankets of tide-abandoned, green-black seaweed,

A screech, a blast of air from flapping wings, a gull swoops down,

Too close for comfort.  I duck under driftwood, 

Hiding from snapping beak and scissored claws. 

Tomorrow I'll find the cake in my oversized pocket, 

Stand proud on long legs once again, 

Scold the gulls for thinking of me only as prey.

Small as sea glass, tall as a lighthouse,

I deserve the same respect. 

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