I was using my plastic mockery of a shovel to empty the sea.
Throwing a handful of water to enrich the diversity of the sand,
but no matter how fast I worked, the water
never seemed any less and maybe it wasn't.
When I asked your help you laughed,
so I abandoned my goal for a time.

You started a dangling conversation about rosemary and thyme
as I watched the salt from my body join the salt of the sea.
Only pausing for seconds to regard the face of the seagull as the bird laughed,
I sullenly explained my plan to uncover Atlantis and spread it out to dry on the sand.
You smiled as if to say I wasn't
any more than a hopeless romantic but you would help move the necessary water.

You aided me in the form of fetching buckets of water
but only after kissing my forehead and quieting my heart for quite some time.
It was understood this action wasn't
intended to allow me to see
any affection more than a condescending protection. I stared down at the sand
because control was something I never had, and you provoked me when you laughed.

I told you your bucket talent impressed me and again you laughed,
joking about your Trident-like control over the water.
But your work was rendered obsolete as the waters cleansed the sand.
At least for a moment there had been a gap in time
when you forced a response from the sea
as it cat-called to you that important wasn't

a quality humans could hold, but it wasn't
important to you. You just laughed.
I was tired of your laughter, so I left the sea
I wanted to open a pathway to the spices that would not employ the water
I had grown so tired of. This passage of time
left you alone writing my name slowly in the sand.

I had dug through dirt and mud to reach sand
before you noticed I wasn't
kidding when I said your amusement in me hurt. I wanted the walls of time
to echo my name as an explorer. Simply because you laughed,
I abandoned my shortcut to China in favor of using the water
hose to make mud to throw at your laughter. I liked to see

your laughter sputter like a flame out of time. Finally I laughed.
It was kind of nice to see that after all I wasn't
lacking the sense of humor you had covered with sand and doused with water.

by C. S., S. Setauket, NY