The Beach

 

Car trouble on the way to Union Pier Michigan.

Martin bent down to look under the hood,

came up with face and glasses covered with soot

or smoke, what a Chevy emitted under stress.

He was startled but fine, like a guy in a TV show,

maybe Abbott and Costello or the Riley dad

in The Life of Riley. We waited at the gas station

where the car got fixed. We were always waiting

for our apartment near the beach, from the day

we came back home to the day we went again.

We played at the mostly placid beach every day,

except when there was an undertow sign, adults

in knotted groups talking in undertones. We kids

got the gist of it, someone pulled under…

Like air we breathed in sadness and respect

for the lake, untamable, small choppy waves

belying its power. The day before we left,

needing to punish someone, my parents, myself,

I dumped a bucket of sand on my head.

Sure enough I upset Rose and for weeks

after that she rinsed sand out of my hair,

though grit like chopped cinnamon

roughed up my pillow each night.