Beach Party Dalliance

On the drive to the beach, the caravan
stops at a roadside stand for strawberries--

we feed them to each other through the windows
like baby birds in a nest gulping for more!

The berries are incredibly sweet and ripe,
they burn the lips and tongue like honeyed nectar,

when we reach the beach and climb the sand
our bodies are no longer ours, but the young

lovers we were forty years ago, the quick
and confused, the swift moving and randy-fleshed,

we laze across the warm scalloped sand,
casual as teenagers aching for love

and yet cautious as parents, mindful to
build a fire but daring to swim trembling

in icy water. We are a band of exiles,
gypsies, a woman in a sari and her

two Nigerian children, another woman
with silver rings on her fingers and a tie-dye

dress that flutters in the wind lke a peacock's tail,
she tells everyone at the campfire that "it's

destiny that we meet", her chestnut eyes
staring wide, waiting for someone to fill them.

Both women are hauntingly beautiful
on the shore, they are looking for men to

make them whole, they have known men who are cruel,
both are looking for women who will understand,

who will bear witness to the truth of their lives,
but they seem haunted, unreal, unsure of what

the evening will bring next after the hotdogs
charred on sticks and the bags of potatos chips

and crispy asian slaw. The men scatter
across the sand bare-chested in the cool wind,

all sunburnt and squint-eyed, playing frisbee
while the kids dive across the sand desperately

trying to catch up. The sun slowly sinks
over the lake, slowly succumbing to

layers of lavender and peach and plum.
The last of the sailboats sag in along the

hollyhocks and roses and soon the faintest
stars and the crescent moon rises. We all

circle around the campire drinking cabernet
and asti, the glowing orange embers and bury

our flesh in the sand, for the air is now
cold, and without partners, the loneliness

is hard...were we younger and licking these
smores off our fingers we'd be licking each

other's fingers, hugging each other, and
disappearing into the hollows of

the dunes. As it is we must pleasure ourselves
with a glimpse of skin, the memory of

a voice, the gooseflesh fraised from an ardent
glance of her leg kicking up from the sand,

his chest tightening as he ran, how her hair
glistened in the sun when she left the water,

how his hand felt when he offered to help
her rise from the driftwood. Then, after midnight,

how we all blunder through the cold,
happy for a hooded sweatshirt and a

slice of cherry pie, the crust spinkled with sugar,
to sit out on the grass of the motel lawn

and count the stars glittering over the deep sky.
This is the loneliness of our lives, the

unbearably sweet and haunting aloneness
that we carry. Another day's longing,

another day of longing!