Summer

      Awake in the backwards wash
      of summer's unending afternoon,
      a few, slow children crawl
      at the curly-headed monster of the sea
5     roaring into fizzles at our feet.
      Nosing the overgrown, unused
      scrap land at the shore end
      of the lapping pier.
      Nearby, an empty-headed
10    horseshoe crab goes skidding from the hand
      of a boy who goes skidding after it.
      At the inlet's ebbing
      light lies gratified on the sand
      shelving on a shelf of sea;
15    when the waters race
      ankle-high on every shore
      shaking the soft dune grasses
      intelligence floods the flow....
      In the flapping shelter
20    of a blue windbreaker
      a panting man on a bicycle goes by
      whirring twin worlds of evil and good.
      Tonight,
      the huge, lightheaded paper lanterns
25    of the Kyoto Japanese restaurant toss
      their planetary, red light back
      and forth across
      the wash.
      Alone and undecided
30    I stand at the rail and look on graffitied rocks
      painted with the alternating
      hegemony of a thousand
      tiny lives and huge nights.

 

From the collection "Red Bank"

Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]

More information available on gregglory.com.