The eloquent elegance of a man standing alone on a beach
tuned in to the whispers of his heart, lost in sad and lovely thought:
He steps to the edge of the unsure tide,
and sinks in the wetness as the fickle foam changes its mind once more.
It recedes, tickling his ankles as it passes,
withdrawing its reach, having satisfied its wanderlust.

But as soon as the water gets home it again aches for distant places
and once more pokes its nose out onto the gingerbread dampness,
scooping the dough from around the man’s feet and gluing his spirit to the
space where ebb and flow overlap.
This is where the air is most pleasant, warm and smooth and heavy
and it pours into the man effortlessly while his toes wiggle merrily.

All the flat rocks around him are gone, hurled sidearm,
skipped over crests or perhaps having pierced the abdomens
of the yawning waves sitting up lazily;
so that there is nothing left for the man to do
but sink and inhale and watch the gulls bob gracefully on the
predictable surface of the calming saltwater,
and it’s unclear whether the man’s fatigue
is setting in comfortably
or being lifted away
by the quiet swirling updrafts.