From a distance, as you walk your morning miles, you begin
to watch the woman standing near the waves.
Hours before the sunbathers will arrive,
she is aiming her camera toward an unimpressive
sandcastle. She is soft, and pale, and thick
through her middle, and something more
than middle-aged, and you think without hesitation
that she is happy,
and you wonder why
so many photos—first from one angle, then another—
and you decide she’s never been to an ocean
before; she’s from some landlocked place
where she would not stand out
for having moon-white shoulders
glowing down on densely freckled forearms,
or high-waisted floral shorts,
or that gray halo of tightly permed hair,
and you think, maybe she’s here for some family
holiday, and maybe all of this is new
to her—this salty, gull-strewn air, this
fine, warm sand, these unceasing waves—and maybe that’s why
she is happy
on this…