God Bless Old Orchard Beach, Maine

Step between the clumps of weed and tangled traps of trash. Footprints in the shallow face of the damp sand fill with pooled water. Look out, past the wide horizon, the stretched, vast blue; point to the pinpoint, where the hazed hot sky meets the bumping, cresting waves; walk, in between the hordes of Canadian tourists speaking in clouds of broken French feel the dry sand hot as it collapses around your ankle “We’re walking to the palm reader — Yes, In between the arcade and the train tracks. Come with us. This beach never changes. The brine still clasps on the wooden legs of the Pier, as it always has. The gulls still swarm down on scraps of fries. Empty bottles of coffee brandy still litter the darkness of the Pier's underbelly. Long ago, I thought I could see England from this beach. Long ago, I thought I could swim to England from this beach. Long ago, when I was a child, I was a tourist walking these sands. I had a friend who lived here. We would eat pizza and bodysurf in the shallows… My friend left this world. He didn’t swim to England, or swim across the sea. He floats above my everything, as high as the open hazed blue ocean sky.”