Sleeping On Siesta Key Beach

Kicking icescapes with my
iodized vision,
I slip my boots into frays
of ice on parched ground and
dream of being with a man,
sleeping on Siesta Key.
It is where the small space
I see stops time
and I lay there as if
forever.
There is no other like it.
Where the sand sifts
through my fingers
like the days when I was
young and carefree,
electric-blue-at-sea always
in the offing.
In my mind,
strange men are sitting
there too. All from some
unusual war that tells us
how paradise finds those
who cannot leave as they lift
us up to safety.
They are there to bite the
reality.
Shivering, I see ahead of me
the children’s playground
across the street in this
cold winter.
I lift my body up with dolphins,
sea turtles, angel fish in my
mind, knowing that the temperature
rises to a record high somewhere
south, inevitably,
on that small space
that mother so often now
speaks about like the first time
she was there too.

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