Too many words litter the screen.
Scrawled graffiti on my brain.
I’m tired. My garden is dying
and waiting for rain. I’m sore
and losing the words that capture
my feelings. Boxes, blankets,
windows, seashells: the hermit crabs
of my thoughts scuttle barebacked
across the hot sand.
I needed the ocean.
Tall waves crashing—
the plovers were nesting
and the parking lots closed.
Are their eggs hatching?
I don’t know.
Keep watching from inside.
The blinding sun,
making me close my eyes.
Follow me to the end of the island,
the last open beach
where the sand is purple
and rocks wait for the tide.
Kids decorate a driftwood tree
with seaweed, shells,
floss from discarded traps;
laughing because it’s June
and Santa isn’t coming.
Drive back to the mainland:
open windows, sunset.
The sound of wind through sawgrass,
beach-plum and bayberry. So specific,
a sound only heard in this place.
When I saw a rabbit cross the road
and swans necking in the marsh flats,
I didn’t know then
that I was picking up shells
to fill with myself later.
I didn’t know that underground,
the seeds of words
had begun their climb toward the sky.
That those eggs, asleep behind fences,
would become birds.
I didn’t know.
© Psyche Marks 2018