Bright Somewhere

Sanctuary

Even the worst of relationships

can have their good days—

or else I guess we would never

sign on to begin with—

those bright early moments

of innocent love that come

before the lies and the mistrust

and the wanting to believe.

Good God, it’s like Normandy,

you said, as we walked down

the strip of desolate beach

littered with stumps bleached

and scrubbed pale

from the burn of white blowing sand.

I liked to think of it as untamed

instead, a place where

all those birds, weak from

winging five hundred miles

across the Gulf from the Yucatan,

could rest and feed before

pushing on further north.

Now, when I return to this place

I can’t help but also think

of the man, arguing with his wife

as they crossed the high bridge to the island,

and how he yanked their van

into the breakdown lane and then

one by one tossed his four

small children over the edge

to drown in the dark

churning waters below.

One was only four months old.

I still have the picture

from our trip to the island,

the one with the camera

held at arms length; as the shutter

clicks, you kiss my cheek

while the wind sweeps strands

of hair across my face.

Behind us—the rolling dunes, dotted with sea oats

and goldenrod and rows of slash pine,

intersected by one weathered boardwalk

and the blue line of horizon, where

somewhere a small bird

is just starting its journey—

and there we are

smiling, oblivious,

our backs to it all.