After Hours

[Sweatshirts and Lifeguard Stands]

We spent summers at your beach house.  

I still remember your cabana, last section on the right,

left after the green, felt mat

which was perpetually wet, even on the of hottest days. 

When we arrived, you would be playing tag

on the patch of sand under the wood railing.  

Sometimes your friends would play catch 

and we would run bases made of boogie boards.  

If the games died down, it was time for the bigger beach. 

With towel in hand we would trek, like the seven dwarves, 

down and into the water.  Then our cheeks would sting 

with sun and salt, as we pulled seaweed off each other’s arms.  

The best remedy was a plunge into the pool, 

our toes still filled with sand.  

The lifeguards hated that, it would clog the drains, 

but the adventure of sneaking past them excited us.    

***

Later I would stand in the shower, and let the water pound my back.

My tongue would catch the water droplets which rolled off my nose.  

They tasted like salt, as if I had brought the ocean back with me to shore. 

When that water lost it’s taste, I knew I was clean. 

After a cold pizza dinner, we tossed out our blue plastic plates, 

leftover from the Fourth, and headed down to the beach.  

It was empty then, not even the seagulls stayed out late.  

I watched the waves swing to and fro, kissing my toes with each stroke.  

My legs would carry me to where you were climbing lifeguard stands.  

I always let you reach the top before I would heave my chest up 

and onto the seat.  The wind off the black, hushed ocean 

filled our lungs and danced with our warm breath.   

***

I think it was hours before we would descend our paint chipped tower.

We’d stand a moment and dig our toes into the sand. 

The top layer was still warm from the August sun, while the underbelly 

was thick and cold. It reminded me that I would be leaving soon. 

The walk back to your porch never lasted long enough. 

We dragged our feet, not wanting to return.  Our parents drank coffee 

while they waited for us and talked, more or less, 

about what September had in store.  

I would pack my bag, which smelt of seaweed and suntan lotion, 

and try to decide if I should forget something, 

just so I could come back tomorrow to get it.  

But I never did forget anything.  

On the car ride home, I would crack my window just enough

to let the scent of the salt air slip through.  

The radio would be playing a song I wouldn’t realize I knew until college,

and even then I would never be sure where I learned it. 

And while my sister fell asleep on my shoulder, 

and my dad retold jokes from dinner, 

my mind would wander back to the sand

and the way the moon had looked on the water that night. 

To My Best Friend’s Sister

I don’t see your mother as much.  

Someone told me that she keeps to the house, 

cleaning the bathrooms and the kitchen, 

just to pass the time, but never that bedroom on the third floor 

which she keeps like an exhibit at a museum.  

Her eyes are now a bloodshot shade ten years in the making.

I was seated next to your sister when our car collided

with the smooth, silver body of a telephone pole.  

She would have been sixteen in two weeks.  

If only she had been wearing a seat belt. 

Our car had been coming from the funeral of a friend 

who had been hit by a drunk driver only a few nights before.  

In the high school someone had written as a sick joke: 

Three people will not survive this winter break. 

He didn’t realize it would come true.  

What if that number had been two?  Would she still be here?

For years you felt abandoned by her, 

like those unwrapped Christmas presents still in her room.

There was a hole in your adjoining closets 

which you used as a secret passage on stormy nights 

so neither one of you would have to sleep alone.  

Since then you’ve moved to the basement 

to get away from her memory and that sickness you feel 

when you see your parents, two people walking half alive, 

going to the grocery store so you have cereal in the morning.  

They haven’t even noticed you now prefer whole grain.   

I wanted to be your second sister,  

to fill the role my best friend had left open.   

But now all I am is the one who survived.