last week we sat in the sun for an afternoon and watched our skin peel,

                        tried not to scratch ourselves raw even as sand clung to our hair.

at dusk, we drove away and our towels flew towards the horizon. 

                                                that night it stormed.

today I am back at the beach, rubbing sand onto my forearms 

                        and trying to unearth               something between the bone and the dermis.

you ask me what I am looking for and            we plunge

our hands into a dune.             

two miles away a man sinks into a pit and

                        does not rise again. his son walks past, 

                        does not see his father reaching out to him.

the sand does not give way to our hunger, instead pushes back at our pulse: 

                        newton’s third law brings us to our knees and            we try again.

the sun sinks into the line and is thrusted back up. light curls

                        over the sand and around our ankles,  stings tender skin with

something from another dawn.            another decade where we 

                        are trying to unearth bones that are not yet buried. 

we do not know yet that we cannot change

                        the way our fingers twitched in brine, the feeling of sand stripping

                                               the years away