beach traffic

Beach traffic at night: a slow-dying beast, moon-pale. Head out the car window, black beach-air, fluid lungs full and greedy, a city throat. The road is measured by palms. Pitchy and stark, they cut rough spreads, insert fronds into a waist of sky. Parking meter, victim of hurricane, I am reverent in touch. Two quarters and my feet soon bare, padding down plank-ramps sick with sand, the same senses overlapping. Sight and smell: drawstring line cinching stars, sea-salt, side-margins thick with lights, fat foam luminous and crawling. A creature spine shining next to my maritime body; a jetsam box of Epsom salt, unknown, superfluous, floating with kelp, flux with osmosis. My eyes balk and burn at the blue-black supine expanse, standing ankle-deep in what feels like the edge of the world.