Vacations

 

1. A visit to the shore

 

I’m on the beach, tired from dogpaddling.

It’s time for a little nap.

 

Before dozing off, I think

Thou shalt 

Thou shalt

Feel immense.

 

The rest of you guys can wash up on the beach

And be shells.

The best kind of shells

Whose iridescence lasts forever.

I declare.

 

Milestones cry,

I am no longer a young man.

I am a man.

Dayenu!

 

Memories curl

On my tongue.

Did I ever see a waterspout?

Ten guys marching at the water’s edge, playing tubas?

Whatever became of my sea glass collection?

 

I dunno.

 

2. Ocean Heist, New Jersey

 

We went to the South Shore

To steal the ocean.

We’d planned it for months

And God found it funny.

 

We were spotted by a lifeguard,

Of course.

The cops brought us in for questioning,

Waves lapping in our pockets.

 

I felt like a fool,

Sand in the crack of my ass.

 

Once, I was handed a lever

And told to move the world.

And I did, I budged it a little,

In my own way.

But that was a different caper.

 

Oh Ocean Heist!

Here girls drool

Over my six-pack.

Danny is safe and happy here.

Rachel smells of breastmilk.

 

Here they train porpoises

To be bus drivers for the Short Line.

Here I eat chicken parm in the Hotel Arizona.

Here I plot with Bob to make a million dollars.

 

Asked why I did it,

I just played dumb.

“Basically, I dunno.”

 

I managed to slip away

And hide under the boardwalk,

Which soon was a future boardwalk,

A raft for refugees.

 

It was getting late.

They warned they’d come for us

If the sea wasn’t where it was supposed to be

By sundown.

 

I swear we always intended

To give it back.

 

                        - New York City, 20 August 2024