ISSN 1758-6488
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Confessional Poetry |
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Polyanna, I can hear my friend Marion cry. At the beach
it’s the elderly I really want to look at. Alone, almost
naked, they give themselves up to the sun, as though it’s the source
of all they need to continue on in the world. Always
the men lie on their sides, scant hair rimmed with salt,
long thin arms across sunken boned chests. Ratcheted
seems the word to describe these arms, but
it’s not correct. Flesh sags and settles against stones.
The women rub their bodies absent-mindedly the way they might
brush crumbs from a tablecloth. As the sun cools, children dig
by the water, parents read, and the elderly relax and slow,
sleep settling over them like a thin sheet. Down they go,
hand over hand through the bright of their lives. We swim
and talk and bucket and build and rub and brush and scoop
and watch and tousle and chide, while the elderly, skin crumpling
into skin, they climb on down.
