beached

No point in the sunrise out here
back home if I was up that early
for some reason
no reason
can't sleep?
not tired!
already slept forever

but awake, up and dressed
for nothing
I could love to step out on
the cool concrete, skip
with a near-silence in my light
step into the darkness
with grass on either side
all the way down one long dotted line
of several streets all the way
to the beach.

At night, the beach
don't need no stinkeen badges
no shirt no shoes, the sand
- wet with dew? Damp, anyhow.
It could just be the same mist and spray
that mists you
as you walk, slow, deep
- bare feet sink, sides of heels scraped
by sudden shell fragments
the quiet and fragmentary shrapnel
of an imaginary being that once slept
its entire life, in a wet salt cocoon
that it wove from mucus and pearl
until its life fell away from the shell

and night came slowly off

as the surf kept surfing in
on itself