i woke with the sun that summer, reeking dump familiar,
liquefying salty ozone and human marzipan; rollerbladed to the closed beach where earth’s limbs reposed in great sighs, sometimes collapsing,
the sound of sandy glaciers tumbling. i brought boys to kiss among eroding city waste but mostly a blanket and good things to eat.
the landfilled edge held me up overlooking the old bay my grandfather swam
across, before war/before virus i wondered often what would become of me— as we all do when young. i’d skate home past the old incinerator dried peach juice trails flickering on legs, the sunset irradiating toxic runoff until it all looked like the opalescent inside of a shell.
now pregnant i return to the beach, this one soft pink and open to the public— lawn chemicals instead of radium, a difference really.
i swim above poised horseshoe crabs, sailboats surrendering white flags to the wind and begin to love cold water, an eye rolling pleasure when you’re igneous with
child. there is ice cream by the harbor, hello to the local winemaker, promising a visit soon—
mother and child in their last moments before the long quarantine and another childhood wasteland.
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