Chalkwell beach.

Cirrus clouds are meteorite scars on a
great blue hope of sky, all
streaked and cotton-candied,
best wishes written on a greetings card
in a hurry,
reflected on the water.
The trees on the way to the beach shush each other,
clapping leaves over their mouths
to quiet their sound.
Right now I'm thinking of the time
we made huge pieces of art from
old doors found in alleyways,
and burned them on the sand. We
danced,
and drank and people
played guitars and banged on drums and
smoked cigarettes and
wandered into the sea.
They were the trees that watched us,
creating grateful rooms of shadow
on a hot day,
lending us a place to stand.
Someone has pressed bottle tops into the soft,
tarry pavement by the beach,
and each time we go, there's more.
It's easy to forget the trains that
slink past us,
lean and purple cats, stretching on a strip
of track from our universe to the real world.
We swim.
An old man comes down here in a wheelchair,
grumbling across the sand
with legs that don't work but a
will that works a hundred times as hard,
hauling himself into the sea to swim,
at high tide every day.
In that moment, when you see him,
your heart goes with him, out into the swell.
With sun on our faces and
soft sand at our feet, I pick at bits of driftwood and
coiled shells, beachcombing,
watching the trees dance their dance.
Watching the man swim out where weightlessness
makes him feel alive.