Laurie Price
Then force the picture cloth overhead
it draws a crowd. Sun spirals in and sand
there is sand again. Slivers shiver in light.
Always more light matched by bronze
cannons and fortification spires a skinny young boy
says something funny and laughs. Clic clic
is time passing (camera shutter) tendriled as waves
of heat the noon sun gentles down. Burn a thought
escapes. Walks the length of beach in a shimmer.
The town is a city ringed in sand and nervous
gulls circling. The dead and otherwise gone
behave. Water pushes fast as sudden
as risen tide light brown bubbles. Nubbed
by flies that bite welts skin red & starts
the associations again. Past engagements
loss factors to a single power squared. Strand.
This put of this foot in this shoe to walk
frail in heat where sodden air weighs
like a mirror’s unfamiliar face. Undulation
a once-thin line. Unduration. Some be
tweens rise as minarets reply with birdlike
grasp of where they’ve been.