If You Don't Become The Ocean, You'll Be Seasick Every Day.

Memorial Day

I paint the white door white, again
easier to come and go, I guess, a light 
for when we were young, sneaking out 
to follow the hem of lace to the jetty 
to find the lifeguards and their fires and sometimes we do, and 
despite the bare skin, it’s always boring 
but most nights, we don’t, 
we find first the thing older than fire - the rhythm, 
we stand, a witness at the water's edge, blind and 
at the mercy of the merciless 
circling our calves, a cold hand, rising 
we are brave and ready to forget, except 
for this electric thread, the fingertip of the whole godforsaken sea,
searing the backs of our knees, 
the pain of finding a round stone with the virgin foot is the sublime, 
we stumble home from nowhere, we don’t let the door slam at night, 
in each room, someone is dreaming
a precarious place 
a beach house, we try 
for everything 
to feel like a clothesline of clean linens
it’s a farce, waterfront is flytape, but we like it here. 
Two of my uncles stand slant on ladders, scraping bubbled paint off trim. 
Their uncle moves around us cool as slack tide. 
He was twelve in ‘54 when Hurricane Carol came 
he carried his grandmother to the marsh side when 
the storm bore down from the beach and picked up the broom from the steps and threw it past him like a spear. 
Mile road, the only road in, was underwater, no one came. 
It only takes a day and weather with a woman’s name to find your compass
he’s done everything since but sweep the porch, 
he says, “Why, when the wind will do it”. 
We ask “Does this look alright”, and he says, “Yeah” 
every time – “I’m not looking for trouble”
to someone only he can hear.
His daughters crouch in the side yard 
picking paint chips out of the grass, 
placing each one in the palm, solemn
as sacrament bread on the tongue
or in our case, beach rose petals
bare knees touching, long braids down their spines, sisters, 
here like this, their whole lives, confessions out to sea
the sparrows take dust baths at their feet, attending. 
We were all born here with sand in our hair
baptized, not in some slow, dark river but 
dragged, beneath the bright, bully waves 
so mean they took our breath away 
but blue enough to give it back, 
blue enough to make our mothers 
laugh at our lips gone cold, blue as the paint on the stairs. 
Children are just mirrors here, watch
soft peach when we wake at dawn to shimmering heat to shy 
little moon snail, sore with sand, curled back inside
the shell - the mothers lap. 
Our mothers, not here, now, but 
it’s only Mile road.
We keep the white door white, 
blue, blue as it ever was.