I spent the morning,
and, I suppose, the afternoon as well,
wandering the beach with feet
singing out from the scorching sand.

Gathering shells the likes of which
I’d never seen before—
Deep purples and perfect spirals or else
strange patterns that appeared painted:

As though in the night a stooped old man—
eyes made bright by moonlight—
wandered the strand with his delicate brush
and palette, rich of nature’s bounty,

creating here a horsehead, there an uncurling fern,
all for me to stumble upon,
these picutres I’d seen in books and thought
some fanciful fiction.

By the time the sun dipped into the sea
my pockets were rich with scavenged treasure,
bulging comically as I tottered on pink-flesh soles
back to my bungalo.

That night I slipped into a halflife,
bonfire shining off my ever-expanding pupils,
a smiling Irish lass the only tether to that
dream-beach-world of lulling surf.

When I awoke—if indeed I did awake—
my shells were gone, lost in the endless opium night.
Dropped in a forgotten heap, perhaps,
or hurled homeward to the sea.

My remembrance of beauty so easily departed,
and I collected no more shells,
understanding, I think, that the tangible somehow
renders memory less so.