If you force the sea through a sieve

for Year 8, Frankston High School

If you force the sea
    through a sieve

         stand back. Oceans will run clear and thin.
        You'll grow bright over your dull catch –
        eat like Neptune, then sleep

         hardly feeling the neap and king
        movements of your mind's floor.
        Light will pass,
        and the sea things douse and drawl
        through your dreams.

                             At last their drip-
        ping will seem to have sunk in silence.
        Only then will you find yourself stir,
        slowly ascend through the levels
        to surface, hauled out
        into blue avenues of spreading mass and murmur.