Beached

July 17 2019

One of those old folding chairs

with an aluminum tube frame

and broad criss-crossing strips

of faded nylon webbing

that dimple your legs

with small even squares

if you sit long enough.

And where your thighs sweat,

sticking to the seat

as you peel yourself off.

He was paunchy and pale,

knobbly knees

splayed up and out.

In the kind of old-school swimwear

my father called “trunks,”

baggy

high-waisted

invariably brown.

Beer in hand

he was leaning back

with imperial insouciance,

surveying the shore

as if he had staked the land

and now claimed ownership.

The sweet chemical smell

of budget suntan oil

slathered on
to hot flushed skin,

a whiff of stale cigarette.

Gulls swooped and squawked

tinny music played

and small waves brushed the shore

as regular as breathing.

A high sun

flattened everything,

beating down and bleaching out,

leaching the strength

from the beached human bodies

that thronged the sand,

inertly sprawled

in its implacable glare.

The castle

the children had made

in all its ramshackle glory,

bossing and bickering and working things out,

but was built too close to the tide.

Like an hourglass

I watched time running down

as the water slowly crept up.