Ode to Katama Beach
by Aubrey Ashmun
The tendrils of your
tired waves swallow
my what ifs,
my have nots,
tucking them away
into a sapphire sleep.
You are too young to drown.
You are too old to drown.
Listen to me breathe
against the shore.
A respirator of salt air.
An in and out of indigo—
the cold caress of blue lava
on the belly of a gull.
I have come to bottle up pearls of moonlight
flickering on white caps.
Do you see the young girl
dancing with a necklace
of seaweed— a nightgown of salt?
The freedom of
fading footsteps.
Washed away I see myself.
A halo of barnacles,
the seal bobbing up and
down,
down,
down,
sinking under the crack
of the swell’s spine.
Hello bluefish. Have you
tasted the silver lures?
I always told my father to throw you back.
Maybe we are safe here—
bathed in silence
hidden beneath the encore
of sand kissing sea.
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