06.10.04: New design. Got rid of the art and tape trading sections since I don't really trade
anymore. Lots of new poetry.
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Everything here is made of
concrete painted blue and
pink and yellow. In the day time,
children build sandcastles on the
eroding beach, littered with kelp,
hiding crushed beer cans
for beachcombers to
unearth. My grandfather thinks
it’s all beautiful, though he never
goes outside. At sea, a crane
drops sandstone rocks into the ocean
to build a wall
to prevent the beach from vanishing
completely and stop the way
nature passes its time. Deep bronzed and
oiled, girls lay out on the
sand, their eyes closed
and breathing evident only in their
rising and falling breasts, and the
shadows of their clavicles where sweat
pools, moist and sticky.
My grandfather talks about
skin cancer and how those girls, in time
will be dried up and
overdone. He knows something
about being overdone. He sits in his recliner
snoring over the hum of
the air conditioner. I am not
fooled by his motionlessness into thinking
that he is constant
and whole. His blood vessels are
clogged with fat, making
his feet white and
blue.
By 8 pm, people are out on
the Broadwalk. The children laugh with their
parents, their faces glowing pink. The kelp is hidden
in darkness with
some of the girls who have gone out
onto the beach with a boy, and there are
the other girls, walking up and
down the storefronts, all with midrifts bared.
My grandfather does not go to the Broadwalk. He goes to
bed at 8. When I come
back in from my walk at 11, I
peer into the open door of his bedroom
where he is lying, his head propped
up by pillows, his hands
folded over his chest like he is
practicing his coffin pose.
--Molly Herrick 08.28.03
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