Save for the shorebirds, the beach is empty,
the barren sandbars cold, and the sea in the offing,
the sea that shimmers in the light from a high overcast,
a wind-blown patch of foam.

The man out walking would not be on the beach
but for the blaze of memory, and the distance
of his walk is not of interest unless it reminds him
of a place like this, and it is still visible

in his consciousness: the figure of a girl
in a skin-tight suit with slipped straps; his fingers
slick with lotion; its sweet-tipped scent in the sunshine
that remains within the reach and retreat of his memory

Save for the shorebirds, the beach is empty,
the barren sandbars cold, and the sea in the offing,
the sea that shimmers in the light from a high overcast,
a wind-blown patch of foam.

The man out walking would not be on the beach
but for the blaze of memory, and the distance
of his walk is not of interest unless it reminds him
of a place like this, and it is still visible

in his consciousness: the figure of a girl
in a skin-tight suit with slipped straps; his fingers
slick with lotion; its sweet-tipped scent in the sunshine
that remains within the reach and retreat of his memory

and the interplay of wind, clouds, and light
on the sea that is never simple or still, but the way,
his way, is always the same, and she not sharply defined:
her hair a blur, her face plain, her eyes straining

to find if he meant to quit her entirely,
and yet, he remembers her bare little body chilly with sweat
at the end of sex when the swirling water forms a trough
that drains the colors from the shells as the tide ebbs

from the creeks and oyster beds that seem to shudder
in the surge, and slide forward in the lull;
the sea to withhold, and hurl itself at the shore again,
and his remorse has no resolution.