Jennings Beach

Cross-legged on the beach blanket,
its variegated stripes speckled with sand
and stitches, Kathleen fingers her salty
fringe and brushes wet grains from the cyan
folds of her bathing suit. She reads
The Great Gatsby, holding open the spine
with an unclenched fist, narrows her eyes
in the sunlight, each time the sun
goes in, bats her eyelids and her irises bloom.

On the mat by her, damp towels smelling
of brine, a creme canvas hat, a bag
of crushed up chips, broken sunglasses,
my copy of Ulysses, a flask of cool water.
Her blue-and-white striped dress is like
the collapsed facade of a Brighton beach
changing hut circa 1930. The sun goes in,
shells half buried are bleached faces
peeking from under tiny dune recesses.

Across Jennings Beach, gulls patrol the last
games of squawking kids, harass old guys
with tanned brown hides as they fold chairs.
Moms in bulging dresses head for cars,
collaring their sprogs, wrapping sandwiches.
Their husbands trudge a step behind, empty
cool boxes hung from towel rack arms.

The late afternoon water is blue and gentle,
almost flat but for a little lap, right over
the sound, blue-grey beneath a pastel sky,
to the millimeter line of Long Island
on the horizon, obscured by turquoise
sails of small boats. A gull ruts its yellow
bill inside the heel of Kathleen's sandal,
I startle it and it yells, then clatters off.

A volleyball punts past the white wood
of the lifeguard's seat into the long grass
beyond the wire fence. Along the shore,
shades of umbrellas darken the ground.
The sky is strung with an endless procession
of Magritte's great cumuli, each identical
and dull, candyfloss pillows in flight.

The day wanes, Fairfield's box houses, white
mainsails, the trees, concrete benches, all
darken and burn in the evening light.
Kathleen crouches by the water, its slosh
stains her leg, she straightens up and squints,
paces, jumps at a skimming gull, runs
a hand through the salty tangle of curls
drying on her sunburnt neck. She kneels
again, and stares out at the ebbing sound.