Surfside

A stone in the sand
dents me

at the edge of frailty –

I am of parts, jagged as
the coastline where
the tide pushed,

having gone far now
from the beginning

like my mother went
back, where waters were
warm, where the ocean

kept a song of us she
never stopped loving,

and she tried more than
many will need

having, on cruelty,
a softness she built up

and beneath it a knife
always ready;

sensing it there
held even in sleep,

the forced inattention to
giggle when she would laugh to

stay silent unless agreeing –
and I existed in fable

taking on too much water
and snapped as the rebar
too solid and needy broke,

and dropped in pieces
like every stone

left in places I felt free –

every bit of that old heart
except what gave purpose

left behind, grabbing
at leaves and sky, ravenous

feeling their immortality, their
constant warmth like
a mother’s love,

gone before it was gone.