_53. Closest Shore

A vacation house on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean
stands erect in the near-darkness of sunset.
A young man standing at the kitchen counter
chopping mushrooms hears his mother
make a comment about the stove and pauses,
knife hanging over the cuttingboard
suddenly moved by a deep and elegant tide of sadness
because his childhood home no longer exists.
Outside the blackness condenses
and the waves become the same
void color as the air.
Early August but already
the season starts to shift,
passing the apex of temperatures and visitors.
A moon breaks the horizon
and the man goes back to chopping
cutting the mushrooms finer and finer.
Dear heart, when did the darkness fall
on our salt-white sand?
When did the waves
stop keeping us up at night?