SAND

During summer vacation, if it wasn’t raining,

my mother took my brother and me

to the Michigan City Dunes.

Early in the morning the parking lot was already so hot

my brother and I had to run to get to the sand.

 

The sand was pure white and so fine walking on it made it sing.

When there was a breeze the salt grass whispered

and sea gulls called all day.

 

We took an ice chest filled with tuna salad sandwiches,

carrot sticks, apples and Fresca.

 

We spread out orange and green beach towels.

My brother played in the water which was too cold for me

while I read science fiction and my mother watched my brother.

 

One summer our cousin came with us.

She was two years older and I was in love.

She wore a two-piece bathing suit with daisies.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her and about the sunscreen girl

whose tan lines were exposed by the little dog on the bottle.

 

No matter how careful we were

the sandwiches sometimes got soaked with melted ice

and the tuna salad would sometimes get a sandy crunch.

 

Then there was the sand in our swimming suits

which suddenly became much more important

when I considered the sand in our cousin’s suit.

 

At the start of summer we’d have sun burns,

but after two weeks our skin was dark brown

and our hair was bleached reddish blonde.

We’d stay at the beach till supper time.

 

Then we moved to San Francisco.

The beaches there were too cold for us to do much.

The sand was coarse and didn’t sing.

The sea gulls sounded sad.

 

There were no more lunches by the water,

but sometimes while eating crab at Fisherman’s Wharf