At Año Nuevo State Park
Watching sand seep into so many tennis shoes,
I am pleased to be wearing my galoshes.
We all amble like toddlers on such soft footing.
Even those with mustaches look fey.
Like a mother’s voice calling from just outside of sleep,
the sun glows faintly behind a wall of cloud.
We arrive at our white-haired docent.
She looks so alone up there with her knowledge.
I want to hug her and tell her we will be kind,
but I can’t be certain among this group of strangers.
She leads us up a dune. “Us,” I whisper
and hang onto the “s.”
At the top, a man asks me to remove myself
from a picture he’s trying to take of his daughters.
It’s one less album I don’t belong in. Still,
I take it personally. I watch the Pacific’s horizon
and crane my neck to see a hundred feet further
down earth’s curvature. Nothing.
What land would I see if my neck kept on craning?
What families live there and what do they name their cats?
A tap on my shoulder. It’s the man,
laughing and pointing at two seals in copulation.
| Masin Persina |
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