Vol 1 No 2 2007
Middle Beach
Middle aged, we walk the empty beach,
glistening whips of kelp
coiled on the sand, its
rippled cartography under our bare feet,
Like Northern Quebec, you say.
We lie side-by-side, fraudulent saints,
a fine shawl of spray drifting around us.
Our pasts are rich, crowded paintings,
giant children in the foregrounds,
strangely bigger than anything else.
Pines line the beach, their dark shaggy
branches spread like continents
against the opalescent sky.
We can’t say why we’re here.
We don’t offer danger, or the dramas
that have given our lives arc
before we understood they would
have it anyway. Waves repeat and
repeat their messages as they do:
Maybe yes, maybe no.
Tangled warnings, or reassurance,
or nothing but their own
introspective songs.
Miranda Pearson