Standing on the Beach

Our heads loll together in our suddenly ancient

Bed. We are alone, bypassed in time and place

By our own youth and by our grown offspring;

Left in that marital state we were before they came.

Would it be so bad to have never felt abandoned?

For never having been anyone who could need

Someone besides the each other we are now?

It would have been like standing on the beach

As all the surfers paddled out to their waves.

Like watching videos of people eating shave ice

At Matsumoto’s. There is so much to gain from observing

And nothing to lose. What do we have now?

Our thick hearts are flabby with children’s kisses,

Our heads full with the resonances of hugs

And thumbprints in the greasy sections of our brains

Upon which float shards of valentine’s candy saying:

“Be Mine.”