Bay green-blue

Lean close—my eyes are not following you
but slide off to where the sun sets

up the empty beach beyond the high dunes
and beyond the dunes the shape of pines

where there’s still a little shade to be had
where once we spread a blue tablecloth

and sat to eat and drink and watch the ocean
the waters of which were possible then

the sun’s skin-scorching no more than that
squalls of gulls over the fecund waves

and I still have a picture somewhere
of my parents in which they’re no older

than I am now showing much more pink
and white than skimpy bathing costume

and he has turned closer to her as she lies
with her toes and knees together—happy

you can tell—oh so happy—and beside them
sits an old-style tartan duffle bag

and I’ve come down for their anniversary
thinking I’d risk the open air

for the advisory thirty minutes and no more
my own flesh wrapped in an oilskin mac

Bay green-blue

a mask of sorts and the dried-up holdfast
of long-dead kelp a cranky idea I read

on a dark web page and there you stumble
in pursuit of my floppy-brimmed

gleaming polyester hat blown off by a gust
and fearful for my exposed head

under the sky today showing that bay green-blue
that is still odd and yet almost beautiful

and the longer I linger here the more lethal