Where does a circle begin? Obviously,
San Francisco’s Ocean Beach makes
as little sense as the Black Sea
coast of Bulgaria. But where
to begin? East or west
or at the center? I
come from the east, but east
of what? At the center
there must be a photographer, an invisible
gnomon. His or her long shadow
tells the hour: four or five or
six o’clock. I am twenty-six years old.
Where to begin?
Mounds of peach-
colored condominiums rot
behind a tide wall. In the distance
a windmill stands motionless
and disillusioned. Every day the tide
brainwashes the old tracks
and waves, waves, and more
waves mark a new
beginning. Does the beach
resemble a sundial
or a sandglass? A man on a tricycle
is pulled forward by a kite
or a seagull, it’s impossible to say
which. Giddy, I spin the landscape
around myself until I feel
again like a child. Whose child?
My family is building a bonfire in the sand
from last year’s Christmas trees.
Dimiter Kenarov is your normal writer, neither a dimeter (a line of verse consisting of two metrical feet) nor Demeter (Greek goddess of fertility). He freelances, he sweats, and he dreams of things abnormal.
Photo by Mick Haupt from Pexels