For whatever anyone (including myself) may/may not think of my writing, I am not a poet.  I love poetry, but don’t know anything about the various forms, never studied it or felt compelled to do so. Of course, when I was a teenager and young adult, I wrote plenty of angsty poems.  All free verse, because, of course, I didn’t know what I was doing.  Attempts at rhymes resulted in the love children of elementary roses-are-red and the man-from-Nantucket, and I abandoned poetry for short stories by the time I was in my twenties.

Once in a while, though, like once every ten years, I have an urge.  I went to the beach with Art Child the other day.  Took the train out to Brooklyn to “my” beach, just beyond the shadow of the elevated train tracks.  Brighton Beach isn’t what anyone would call paradise, or even clean–truly, you have to shower off the layer of dirt and grime before determining whether or not you got any color– but I love it. It feels like home, what can I say.  When we were walking to the water, I noticed chicken bones scattered in the sand, probably rejected by seagulls.  Those bones, complete with bits of batter and gristle, stayed in my mind. 

Past the end

down and down the steps

up the ramp

splinters of before

push through

 

Sun soothes, empties the cells

Look Ma! No cancer, Vitamin D–

except skin

Pleats and furrows pulled taut by kelp flies

pores opened by the heat

for sweat to drown the fleas

Open

wider to swallow

shell fragments

broken beer bottles

chicken bones

 

And the salt

taste it

on the breeze

in the water

against the scummy layer of coconut oil

 

Grains of could-be

meld into

Squishy mud of

should-have-been

and I dive.