On the Beach
We lurch through good morning
the boat between us
tucking in the edges of tarps
while trying to keep up my end of
how are the kids?
I am thinking
you kissed me right here
where we are standing
30 years ago.
The wind lashes my hair across my mouth
preventing me from saying
too much
you
are still bent over
tying knots
battening down the present.
Abruptly you straighten up
stowing your hands
I am remembering your fingers then
not at all tentative as they are now
hooked to the rungs
of your belt loops.
Oh how I long to lie back
in the tall grass
but you just stand there
and move the sand around
with your shoe.
Amanda Bidlack Strand’s poetry has appeared in American Life in Poetry, Future Cycle Poetry, and Frank: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing and Art. She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she trained as a dancer and actor. She lives in Jonesboro, Maine.
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