Sea asters

The asters said: We blossom not for each other but for the thief. She had fallen in love with a horse, as young women will do, while I polished a mirror for looking at the stars. The sand flies were terrible that year; the whelks & mussel shells would go uncollected for days. Hoof prints appeared every morning coming out of the ocean.

Have you ever tried to have sex on a beach? Between the salt & the sand & the suntan oil it’s a recipe for rashes… & then there’s the question of what to do with the used condoms and all the empty beer cans. But something about the vast indifference of the ocean excited us, made us yearn for our own, measely throb & release. I remember lying spent among the beach grass & the sea rocket with the Milky Way spread out above us, & hearing the drumbeat of hooves over the hush of the surf. “Did you hear that?” “Hear what?” I thought about the mirror back home in its wrappings, how thousands of random, back-&-forth motions could excavate a perfect trap for light.

2 Replies to “Sea asters”

  1. Nice, Dave. With a gorgeous beach so near, your words took me time travelling 30 years. As for beer? Concoctions of pineapple, papaya and mango juice with rum were our poison between the high dunes.

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