Go to the coast, keep hearing.   Sea air
braces.  Salt stinging your eyes
and sand gritting your crotch bound
to remind that it was not you who died.
Rains, always curl up and read.   This
smacks of hounding, we're winging it
here.  Because we care.  Thinking of
screenprinting tee shirts that say
Dead or Alive, luv.  Dead or Alive.
 
Keep hearing "think."  What I think is, why
get out of bed, far less fight traffic?  Beach
was ours!  Still hear surf pound as we
experiment with positions that are easy
on sun- and wind-stung flesh.  We're in
the top-knot of a cottage we were lucky
enough to find.  Between, we surf-fish
for spot we throw back.  Fish market
sole crisped by sizzling Crisco tops.   
Bless every moonlit stroll.  All the silver,
all the shimmer.  Mother-of-pearl layering
a wedding cake sky as we make out behind
a big dune.    Where are the signs?  Tide
comes in, tide goes out.  Watch ourselves
do impressions with our feet, then the sand
is flat.  Your long  second toes?  Erased.   
Spur on my left heel?  Erased.   Everything us.     
 
Waves still wash away the good with the bad.
Don't tell me they don't.  Water still levels,
right?  With you, it was easy to believe that
the slap of a wave was applause.  Let cynics
hiss and hawk.  Bubble we were in sprang
a leak or three, who cared.  Roar the sea
and us laughing at the very idea we could
break like dried and stepped-on shells.
Yes, our linked hands and bumping hips
were as a sail was to wind.  Roars could be
conceived as warnings.    Shards that cut
through my sandals, leaving blood that
attracted gulls.   Crabs sidled up.  Wouldn't
be surprised if a shark got a whiff and
ventured near.  You did not die at the beach.
You did not die.  Go back,  maybe I'll find you
waiting in a top-knot,  all grit an' grin.
Be shedding your trunks.  All right!
 
MapQuest print-out on the dash,  Sprite
in the cup-holder,   head for I-95.