Low tide by Fiona Moore

You could step over
the barrier, but no.
This is not a beach
but an exhibit. Here
are the concrete uplands,
barren and windswept,
split by stream-bed cracks
where sorrel grows like rust
and hawkweed’s gone to seed.
Below are the foothills,
a bright green slime-coated
rubble bank that runs down
into shingle and junk –
a city of slums lapped
by brown water under
girders reaching skywards.
The exhibit shows
how waves will come in and
cover everything.