sand-caked sensibilities

"-- they said nothing, and our parents said nothing, so that we sensed how ancient they were, how accustomed to trauma, depressions, and wars. We realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the world they really believed in, and that for all their caretaking and bitching about crabgrass they didn't give a damn about lawns." -Jeffrey Eugenides


























The sun is setting on the day I find this photograph. The air is light, warm, and intimate from this year's first spring blush, and it longs to be shared with a lover or spent watching children tumbling in the frothy waves. All normal beach sounds are hushed as the sky fades to pink, and I keep collecting small crab claws that are sprinkled in odd abundance along the shoreline, curled robotically into themselves. For who? I've been wrapping my strange collections in paper and sending them to girlfriends who will either understand their significance or be startled by the unappetizing reference to life's finite nature.

Back into the yellowed dim of my apartment and I prop the image of the mysteriously pensive woman against an object of cut glass. Something darts through me every time I fixate on her and I almost remember what it's like to gaze at someone tenderly.