Glenn G. Coats

March of Time

The way we both remember him. Blond hair. Thin arms and legs. Eyes too big for his face like someone who was starving. We knew he was ill. Our parents told us that much. The boy walked to the bay every day with his family and they spread a blanket near the jetty. He sat between his mother and father with a towel draped over his shoulders. Two sisters built sandcastles close to the waves.

summer heat
my cousin looms taller
in her go-go boots

We didn't give it much thought. The boy was a few years younger and we didn't know him well. Instead, our bare feet burned up and down the beach. We managed awkward flips off of the fishing pier and laced strips of squid on narrow hooks when the snappers were running. The boy flickered like a candle through the summer yet we thought little of the day before or what would happen tomorrow.

the place
where a fish splashed
night sky

Odd, we should speak of him tonight. Neither of us recalls his name. The air is humid; ready to rain. We can't see the noisy water birds that sound like chickens. We cannot see that far ahead but our shoulders hunch from the weight of a lifetime—the time that is left.

morning train
stick figures part
the mist