Rhye Beach, NY 11/25/2017
1.
Once bustling buildings, vacant.
I stood: boots in hand,
that beach a palimpsest of forgotten seasons—
November adding gray to white walls.
2.
I couldn’t help but walk beside him.
Because I was in love with the sunshine
touching sand—not snow,
and wrapping him, a sheath.
But he was not held.
He was called forth by the day–
not in search of one thing but in
capturing all that too shone.
I ate what I could,
the warmth to sustain me
as a bear through winter.
Stains
Summer afternoons
we painted people onto popsicle sticks.
Color bled
into the lines on our fingertips
like the blackberries
Grampy
launched at us over bushes—
blotches of blue on my
Watermelon shirt.
Mom bleached those,
a Clorox tye-dye
to cover the sundry stains
from when we
were up to no good.
Shawna Norton just moved to the Albany area from Burlington, VT. She received her MA in English Literature from the University of Vermont.
