There is the gray almost white, there is the bluer gray and a boat’s wake of white,
there is the boat disappearing from sight and the kelp like wide blemishes floating pale skin,
there is my waffled skin,
there is the shore with its sand, breathing holes that could hold yellow pencils,
but there is life in the grit, air channeled down, not graphite scripts,
not words of communication,
yet there is conversation with receding foam or tides’ inbound flows –
as if these bare feet on this hillside find those vibrations,
and what breathes in the sea, what floats water’s skin,
what edges out and comes back in
is here where I listen.

In this place, I have not walked the beach since the absence of my friend.
What is here is hard tile and cold glass with a view.
Here is the vision and the imagined vision,
here, a witness who abides on one distant hill
with yellow pencils, with pulverized words tumbled faint as the line there
where sky and ocean meld . . .
But below on the shore where it bends like a smile, or makes its extended reach,
sand the color of yellow-white scorpions, in-ground creatures
wait and breathe,
as if they are me,
me with bare toes holding to echoes
here, where air channels up
and translations are meet.

There is the gray almost white,
the bluer gray,
and a boat’s wake,

there is the boat disappearing,
and kelp like wide blemishes
floating pale skin.

There is my waffled skin,
the shore with its sand,
breathing holes that could hold yellow pencils.

Instead, there is life in the grit,
air channeled down,
not graphite scripts,

yet there is conversation
with receding foam or tides’ inbound flows –
as if these bare feet on this hillside find
those vibrations,

and what breathes in the sea,
what floats water’s skin,
what edges out and back in
is here where I listen.