Brushing aside the palm fringe
of a beach that emptied at dusk
we kick off our sandals and step into the surf
our feet seized by quicksand
as the ocean breathes in and out
in and out
like one great pneumonic lung
Mom on her machine.
Before us the world
is black on black
but strewn with heirlooms
the sky harboring as much silver
as the sea.
A clear day has become a clear night
so clear
we say we can see the lights of Havana
ninety miles off
but both know it’s just a dinner cruise
coming in.
Otherwise the night is so empty
the vacuum so vast
we fill it with small talk
to keep a sense of scale.
“Tourists,” Mom mutters
as if she’d never been one
before she moved down there
“for the air.”
Yance Wyatt is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has appeared in Grain, Los Angeles Review, The Pinch, and Zyzzyva. He teaches at the University of Southern California, where he formerly served as director of the Writing Center. His debut novel, The Watersmith, is forthcoming from Regal House Press. You can find him on Instagram at @yancewyatt.