The sidewalk runs out here.

I’ll face the traffic down the long slope of road

to the neighborhood I used to see

every sunrise morning, and the ocean,

which has never drawn one fear from me

on the flat pull of receding water.

The beach is just an end point for my walk,

but irony is lively in the salty breeze

when I find that I can’t reach the sand

because the seawall stairwell’s full of slopping tide,

scrubbing steps and stones as clean as air.

September 20 2021