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Kobbe Beach
I
You cannot talk to a time erased from the map of desire
old Kobbe Beach in ’58 & a chubby ten year old
the inner tubes bobbing like black donuts in the pea-green sea
you cannot talk to that
the marshlands in the rising tides the
foamed pull through the sand the whirl of breeze through
my mother’s hair as salt-eyed I’d squint out at a
cobalt blue horizon as she wrapped me in a towel
& the sea receded around us and the weeds garland our ankles
II
It was a time orphaned by time
a place displaced a scab in a wound that finally healed there
is no trace but the ebbing throb of dusty photographs
there is no finger I can point at the geography of man and say
this is the homeland of my youth from that mango tree I swung in
happiness, yet it is all I can do to retrieve it from oblivion:
garlanded ankles and heels swiftly sinking in sand
a beach day in Kobbe and the wind keening through the beach pines
III
My father slurped oysters he’d fish from a pail at his feet
sipping beer on the wooden veranda, his holstered .38 under
an unbuttoned shirt flapping in the wind snuggly in his butt crack
a happy man caught in uneasy times but his laughter rang true
and tart as lime juice over oysters
he’d do a dance standing on one leg twirling on one leg while tapping the side of
his head he’d do a dance as long as it took to unclog his ear
and people would believe he was a dangerous man for doing so
and probably a bit crazy too a human pogo stick bopping
helter skelter down the shoreline serious as a pelican
IV
We Puerto Ricans would unfurl our bed sheets on the beach
fronting the marshes beyond the shark net in the low tide mud flats
where the smells of our cooking would not offend
where our voices would be caught and drawn away by the wind
and we the children would then scatter to the edges of the marsh
where the oily water began for driftwood and kindling along
the high grasses to fire the kettle of chicken rice stew while
our dads stood strewn about like Easter Island heads with
cold canned beers eyeing the unswimmable stretch of beach
crisscrossed with the minute tracks of hermit crabs
©2012 Jorge Morales-Santo Domingo
I
You cannot talk to a time erased from the map of desire
old Kobbe Beach in ’58 & a chubby ten year old
the inner tubes bobbing like black donuts in the pea-green sea
you cannot talk to that
the marshlands in the rising tides the
foamed pull through the sand the whirl of breeze through
my mother’s hair as salt-eyed I’d squint out at a
cobalt blue horizon as she wrapped me in a towel
& the sea receded around us and the weeds garland our ankles
II
It was a time orphaned by time
a place displaced a scab in a wound that finally healed there
is no trace but the ebbing throb of dusty photographs
there is no finger I can point at the geography of man and say
this is the homeland of my youth from that mango tree I swung in
happiness, yet it is all I can do to retrieve it from oblivion:
garlanded ankles and heels swiftly sinking in sand
a beach day in Kobbe and the wind keening through the beach pines
III
My father slurped oysters he’d fish from a pail at his feet
sipping beer on the wooden veranda, his holstered .38 under
an unbuttoned shirt flapping in the wind snuggly in his butt crack
a happy man caught in uneasy times but his laughter rang true
and tart as lime juice over oysters
he’d do a dance standing on one leg twirling on one leg while tapping the side of
his head he’d do a dance as long as it took to unclog his ear
and people would believe he was a dangerous man for doing so
and probably a bit crazy too a human pogo stick bopping
helter skelter down the shoreline serious as a pelican
IV
We Puerto Ricans would unfurl our bed sheets on the beach
fronting the marshes beyond the shark net in the low tide mud flats
where the smells of our cooking would not offend
where our voices would be caught and drawn away by the wind
and we the children would then scatter to the edges of the marsh
where the oily water began for driftwood and kindling along
the high grasses to fire the kettle of chicken rice stew while
our dads stood strewn about like Easter Island heads with
cold canned beers eyeing the unswimmable stretch of beach
crisscrossed with the minute tracks of hermit crabs
©2012 Jorge Morales-Santo Domingo