Sanderling

Forget Alaska. Then forget the bleached-

out trap of beach you’ve come to, Spring Break clutch

of condominiums and closed-down theme

parks—neons now pastel—and calcified

nostalgia. Think of nothing but your legs,

of pinching up your knees until you feel

inclined to rig your beak down through the sand.

Then stop.

Dig in.

Begin again. Forget

mole crabs that shiver down and keep those feet

fluttering: dusk has found its chill post-Labor

Day, and the air is full of dragonflies

in pairs. When you retire the shore tonight,

we emerge, pre-snowbird humans still not sure

about our own migration, calling it

a pilgrimage instead of what it is—

delay,

            escape,

                        indulgence of the id.

A ghost crab scuttles perpendicular

beyond our flashlight but disrupts the lip

of waves by balking at the shoreline like

a girl who can’t—but wants to—hibernate,

or her man, whose worry eats his nails away.

The calcium-deposit moon slips up

the whitlow sky, illuminating dunes

we roll each other into. Forget that you

will have to fly back north. Tell us we’re

not settled by the map-edge of our birth.