The water comes in, sheets
with no words on them
just in then
erasing themselves without trying,
back
out.
The pink Kansas toenails I have
in the water
from where
the sign says, “No other languages,”
so the Vietnamese ladies are all quiet,
or speak to us,
in Kansas.
The pink toenails the blackish
east-coast rocks that are triangles
and
full of mica as shiny
as fillings.
The pink Kansas toenails my paleish
but slightly dyed feet tops
as I begin
for the spring
slightly dyeing my
feet and calves to not look so
marked in the sun, with little
plum-colored branch veins that show
now, and my running-into-desks
bruises and places I cut myself
shaving and the bumps it leaves which
I was not
told about when I was told
to shave my legs
by
magazines
and
I guess are not pretty… old
enough to have such veins (they are called
spiders), young
enough to try to cover them, old
enough to try halfheartedly.
On this beach there
is the cheapness
in the summer
of music and brown bodies
all summer rubbing around like bees
it is not summer yet
though
today
the
beach is
99%
sand and
1% people
and the beach which I
like because it is free also one
must watch
one’s feet
for
fragments
not to
press your foot
your whole
weight
on, not
get hurt,
the beach is free.
When I was eight I was
lost on the east beach and
maybe the most afraid I had been
and my grandpa found me and
I was also afraid then as
he did not discipline me, but I
didn’t know if he would, and
he didn’t but we
saw a man die.
My grandpa with his big white belly that
could
turn
red, burned
after all day
and the dead man
actually
white,
white all over.
My grandpa giving up
butter,
my dad
salads for
lunch every
day,
faithful now.
The man had
drowned
and
was
white
dead.
My grandpa I remember
chuckled a lot that was his
word: chuckle.
at sand crabs, at us,
at whatever
someone had said and
I think if he had lived
longer he might
have taught me not to
take my life so
seriously
anyway
he might have said, “Tell
your dad
this,”
when my dad was estranged from me
I was eighteen
but anyway my
Dad
and I
were back
within
six months
maybe three it seemed
like
a long time.
My grandpa did not
die on that beach
and my dad did not
either
but like the man on the
beach Grandpa did die of a
heart attack, and split-second
ten minutes at most
I was eighteen.
The point is he found me and
I was all right,
led back to our towels
and our buckets
and shovels
and our sand crabs
and our bottle of
sun tan lotion
back to our spot
of the beach, needing
no reprimand.
I rarely did, do, I
have scared myself enough.
The first time I came
To this beach there was
no sand to
see
only people’s
98.6 degree hot corpses 4th of July
weekend and we were sweaty
from the bus already when we
made it and we walked between people like
the whole
beach was the Met (where we
also went) and all the seats were
full and we had seats in the
orchestra pit where I have
never sat, not
being a good
sight
reader
(for scores)
up through the
crowd we
went
and the water
was there
was a
surprise
because you could not
see
ahead
of
you and it
was
there on
my feet, the
Atlantic
And it is on my feet
This water
though
is different
despite what
a sailor
said
in an article
last week:
“This is the same
water
Columbus
sailed
on.”
It isn’t.
Landing 