AT MISQUAMICUT BEACH, RHODE ISLAND, OCTOBER 29, 2022

Sea-froth doilies lap the shore: the tide comes in. A seal skirts the waves’ break and overhead gulls wait for tossed bread or any stranded life I had forgotten what the sea says and says again and again and how it wants everything, tugging at my ankles, beckoning me to come inside beneath its curving glass. Surely it does not remember me, my restlessness, my longing or the longing of so many gazing out across its face, all of us chained to time, but it opens long arms to me and takes each year a little more beach until where we stand this instant is gone and we are gone and any trace we might leave.

Julie Suarez