shay's archive Poet Free verse

seaside

do you want to go the seaside
i’m not trying to say we needed anything more

we found fossils by the shoreline
with nowhere else to be
and you bought another postcard
like you always do

we planned it with what little we had
counted every pound
made a whole day out of almost nothing
and somehow
it was everything

i think that’s what i’ll remember
not how much we spent
or where we went

just you beside me
whitby in front of us
and the feeling that we’d got everything right

and so there we were
looking down upon the empty streets
the seaside by your side
me laying beside you
thinking about whitby
the fossils in your hands
the postcard in your bag
the little journey we made
with almost nothing

do you want to go the seaside
i’m not trying to say we needed anything more

we found fossils by the shoreline
with nowhere else to be
and somehow
it was everything

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Alison A Smith October 1, 2026 at 6:12 PM This is a quietly affecting free-verse memory poem, shaped by repetition that gives it the soft, circling quality of someone revisiting a day they do not want to lose. The plain, conversational language makes the tenderness feel earned: fossils, postcards, counted pounds, and empty streets become intimate evidence of a life shared attentively. The return to “almost nothing” and “everything” is especially moving, while Whitby grounds the poem in a real, windswept place. Its ending does not force a grand conclusion; it simply returns to the original question and lets affection remain open, modest, and complete.