Tide
BY JESSICA GREENBAUM
As it turned out, it was not the most
Beautiful day at the beach. Seaweed, in late August
Came at me in waves as though shredded by someone quite
Determined in June and July. Everything,
Everything was shredded because my daughter’s personal ocean
Flayed the fabric of her life (as I had known it)—
Gone was the untouchable memory of holding her
Here, in the waves in the shower’s cold rinse.
I write this to no one. Only to
Jess, holding her when the tide left salt’s signature on our skin and
Kites dallied like the gulls in currents, waves
Lobbed one thought after another. Today, the beach designed
Metaphors of deconstruction; the past turned inside out like an umbrella
Nearly knocking down the toddler, as, uprooted, it cartwheeled
Over the sand. Anything could happen now that the
Past flung itself to the wind, hope
Quit whatever post it had held, a clearer, sweeter
Reality fled south with the tide while the
Sand in our food, our bag, our clothes
Told a story of how things break down, and I
Understood the settled law of memory now carried no
Veracity.
What was left? An
X-childhood?
Your own life?
Zenith, where, now?
Your move. Sometimes
X denotes railroad tracks that go both ways.
What will the girl in the moon dictate? As the tide of
Veracity rinses our toes it makes it
Understood that a single day’s conditions also
Tells a reversed story; how the
Sand might be crumbs of memory that never leave us in
Reality, how the lifeguard, leaving her post, hasn’t
Quit, not forever. She was my daughter, looking out over her
Past, the sun set, and she would take a break
Overnight, though the night might be
Nearly a decade, and then return, her own
Metaphors like a game of catch
Lobbed back to her own oceanic imagination.
Kites dally above; they are her friends. Also floating above is me
Jess, just one of the people who love her, and
I become a magic seagull to grant her wishes, waiting
Here, the rest of the swimmers
Gone. Another day the water will be clear. What seems de-
Flating is just the breathing out. Surely
Everything cannot be lost if she who remembers is
Determined to breathe in what beauty
Came at her in waves for years, the most
Beautiful day at the beach, even that, not all a day at the beach
As nothing can be like that, say the beautiful shells.