A Long Walk on the Beach

There’s nothing like a long

walk on the beach to break your heart.

Personal ads and dating profiles

must have it wrong, or perhaps

those people have never walked the shore

alone.

Dusky sunlight still clings to the edge of sky

but darkness is heavier.

The sea is heavy too; I can hear it crashing

and it pulls me.

Sand crests just beyond the bridge,

and dunes swell like waves.

Everything looks and sounds

and smells like falling in love.

Sand dunes draw the tears first;

there we once sat, entangled in each other’s

sweaty arms while the photographer

tried to catch the sunlight playing

on my left hand.

The sunset has come and gone,

so only the barest light bleeds through

blue clouds. I keep my distance from the

sea, for there we used to dance and play

and cling to each other while the weight

of the world swirled around

our slippery bodies.

You are under that water, somewhere,

far beyond my reach. I resent the sea,

resent its memories and for keeping

you from me for a time. Every beautiful thing

is hated by someone, but I suppose I

don’t hate the sea.

I walk for a while, navigating the shifting sands

like an unsmiling toddler, unsteadily seeking.

I almost step into a sea of shells.

Unlike Moses, I put my sandals back on

and I sift through the shells with soft fingers,

looking for any whole and pretty.

I think of how we’ll use these shells

at the hospital, how I need ones without

holes so the water won’t drip out before

it baptizes a still, still baby.

Sifting through the shards seems sinful now,

and they sound like broken stained

glass when I disturb them.

What is this but a beautiful graveyard, where the

smallest ones are saddest?

I think of giving the shell to a weeping mother

after I baptize her child.

Here, something small and dead and beautiful;

I used it to pour God into your baby’s hair.

I continue walking, and the shells I’ve chosen

make a symphony in my pocket.

I wish I had your hand to take in mine,

to help me balance across the sands,

to steady me when impulse

propels me up onto the jetty of wood and stone.

You might have kept a hand at the small

of my back, or let me hold your hand as

I traversed the jagged rocks.

I navigate to the point of the jetty

and stand there, staring.  Listening. Breathing.

I’m at the edge of the world.

Here, I am a goddess, not a girl.

Every element pulses around me.

Water sings, swells, then slams against stone.

Rock shudders but withstands; sand whispers.

Wind battles my hair, so I take off my rubber

bracelet, the purple one that reads “Love knows no

distance”, and I trap my hair.

There is no fire, but the lights in the windows

glow orange. Houses shimmer like embers

against the night.

I am a girl, though. Not a goddess. I was the only

girl on Earth for a moment,  and you were somewhere

but I remember now--

I am just one girl, an insignificant shadow

balanced on the edge of the world.

I throw back one of the shells with a hole,

but when it smacks against the rocks,

I can’t bear to throw another.

Imperfect or not, they’re mine.

Walking back is even sadder

for darkness drank the last of  drops

of sun.

I pass the cemetery of shells again,

past the dunes standing guard on the path.

Perhaps they’d feel like guards of honor,

sabers drawn if you were walking with me.

I pass a tree with the most beautiful,

winding limbs and I think about how

wonderful it would be to climb in it,

how perfectly one branch kissed

the grass to grant access to children and

short, unemployed goddesses.

But I do not stop to play. I keep walking.
I bend, bearing the weight of unwritten words.

I seize the purple bracelet.

I wrap it back around my wrist.

My hair, at least, can be free.