We’d come down to the beach after sunrise
And settle in the dunes. Listening to the rollers
Whoosh against the slick, wet sand, a sound so peaceful it
Almost put us to sleep. Would have, had the reason we were
There had not been to engage in frenetic embraces and lovely
Sighs that convention would not let us enjoy in another bed.

We were fiercely anti-establishment, remember that?
Most of our conversations were about turning “normal”
On its ear, and spitting in the windless morning air
Just to see if we could raise us up a hurricane.
Trying not to turn the affair into something tawdry;
Wrapping the whole thing in poetry to keep it smelling fresh.

Of course we rationalized. We were special; wounded;
Prey to wild circumstances over which we had lost any
Semblance of control. I believed I was saving you from the monster,
While you sobbed loudly when I said I was born with the inability
To take any woman at her word.
God, I remember how hotly you set out then to save me!

And if it were all just horizontal friction, it would have run its course
Either that, or some picture would have filtered out there in the universe:
The two of us sipping from the same umbrella drink through a two-headed straw;
Sitting at a small round table in a lounge where flattened zebra skins played
The roles of walls. Your significant other would have found us, either with
A Glock or a lawyer, and both would have killed with the same malevolent bang

But you were good at burying feelings, as well as treasure. Even your nosiest
Neighbors never knew the reason you slipped a kerchief over your head in
Gray November and drove out to the beach. Standing in the sand, watching
The gulls feed on something until I appeared out of the fog, a line of footsteps
Fleeing the clinging ghosts and the misery they brought from yesteryear

But whatever we thought this was; however fleeting or transient we thought
It would be turned into a joke played on ourselves. How astonishing,
To find I liked clinging to you on the brisk mornings when the salt air caressed our lips.
How amazing, to watch you with wet diamond eyes as I held a steaming mug of coffee in a
Beachfront café. To see you truly: your hair tousled in sexy disarray, your periwinkle eyes
Following the fishing boats chugging slowly out to sea.

How reckless we became then in the throes of love.
How much our lack of conversation
Turned into something older than sin itself.
How we plotted break-ups and assignations
Heedless of how many lives we’d ruin throwing rocks against the glass.

Funny how something so beautiful can be so callously self-absorbed.
Funny how the wounded become assassins, slashing the air with sabers,
Bleeding out the innocent and not knowing how to mourn them when,
Again and again, they cause them all to die.

I guess there was something about the beach in winter.
How it did not lend itself to lying in the dunes.
How it made us keen to the cold east winds coming off the ocean,
Making messes of our matted hair.

We grew up, is how you put it. Remembered that not everything lovely
Is worth the price of putting it to canvass. Kissed and cried that December day
When the wind finally answered all our unasked questions. Blowing sand and tide across
The jetty, making us think the beach itself would disappear in the next big storm.

So we did, at last, before the magic died.

06/20/2011

Author's Note: Another short story that turned out to look better here, in the end

Posted on 06/20/2011
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch