| Beyond Where I Have Ever Traveled | |
| ALAN SOLDOFSKY | |
Published in The Gettysburg Review - Vol. 16: Number 2, Summer 2003
|
|
for
Victoria |
|
| You
have gone into the paralyzed sunlight, past the rinds of pastel apartment houses worn down in the wake of morning's overcast to the color of sand |
|
The residents in— ill-fitting swimsuits and robes— summer renters like us with only slightly more dignity than dogs, scratch their flanks roasted red by yesterday's sun. |
|
There are so many of them housed so close together—still they semi stunned to see across their stainless steel coffee mugs another face tilted slightly away, eves stained with the same imprint of sky. |
|
No wonder you wanted to get away early, before the newspaper racks announce what is actually befalling this strip of boulevard cowering like an addict in a damp sleeping bag beside the ocean. |
|
To stop and ask where anyone is coming from is forbidden at this time of the morning before the 737s exit the catacombs of air to disgorge their human contents onto this pseudo-tropical shore. |
|
That is why I wish to God I could keep up with you, love, as you stride the three miles down the boardwalk that fronts the beach, like the Pacific's own discarded foreskin, to a table at the not-yet-too-crowded sidewalk latte shop. |
|
And then walk back, crusted with the salt of health, the wind's idiotic intelligence blighting my countenance, while on a skateboard a shrunken, platinum-haired man in baggy shorts passes by me, saving the rest of the world.
|
|
| Home | Download PDF Version |