“I scatter the sandpipers who/run from me/but not/the tides.”
As we walk the beach
Dad asks me what
it feels like
at its worst.
eggshells, ice, or coals?
I scatter the sandpipers who
run from me
but not
the tides. Several breakers
crash
before I find
the words at my feet.
more like wet sand
between the waves,
with each step crumbling
more and sinking less;
if I stand still for a wave
cycle, I’ll sink.
I catch him looking
back at the prints we’ve left.
Dad stops ahead to brush
the lingering
daylight
from his sandy legs, waits there.
I’m lagging
behind him now, despite
longer legs
& more to prove.
What good, these
steps I take,
for them to hold me still?.
Julian Kanagy is a Chicago-based poet whose work sets out to explore questions he cannot find the words to ask. As editor-in-chief of The Wild Umbrella, in regular reading, and in his own writing process, Julian appreciates deliberacy, concision, and variety in structure. Per the advice of a mentor, he is always searching for those “poems nobody else could have written.”
