ventnor city, new jersey
in the long stripe of setting sun,
at the hour of day when g!d sets on this
side of the world & wakes on the other, on the beach
i cry for a man who loves me but won’t
keep me. i write & write & write & g!d
tells me i’m everything they made me – indistinguishable
& whole, a heart like sand at low tide: a pillow miles wide, easy
to rut & healable with salt-wash of wave, abalone sheen for a
surface. i look up, blink through tears. a white
set of humps on the horizon, too far to tell substance
or scale. a cruise ship? whales? i approach
the water’s edge. earth’s curvature steals the shapes.
maritime geography swallows them with tricks
of angle, perspective. i’d come to be close & the distance
pushes me away. so here i stand. a lone gull irts with lapping
foam that holds her dinner. runs in for nourishment. runs away
from a drowning as each small wave breaks. i turn back to the boardwalk,
make my way home in fast-cooling
air. high moon brightens behind me. lavender wisps
thicken where sky meets sea. a thousand shards of broken
shell crunch beneath my feet, original sculpture lost
to injury. slices of arcs in calcium’s hues: khaki, rose, orchid.
one more millennium
& they’ll be sand.
Artwork by: Władysław Ślewiński
