I just make out the buoy and the boy who
reaches it, a blond spot at the red
uncapsizeable hat, gone
past the continent’s ledge.
He waves. The sea waves too, advances
on a crab’s sand-hole hermitage:
inside, it’s rimmed with falling
sand grains like stars. The sea foams,
winks closer. I eye the crab’s house.
Will he escape, pincers bobbing,
open like mouths? I pose
the question while my father,
back to the sea, snaps photos.
I am the sea’s corsage, a pink
and brown girl, pinned
by unstinting sunlight
to a towel, to the sand.
Sun-burned, hot, I stand.
If you look through me you see
my brother’s head bobbing
on the sea’s wink and blink.
He emerges, buoyant, beaded, starred.
I am envy’s crabbed sister,
my horizon, sand’s old glitter.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 16, Issue 3.
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