two ghosts that don’t mix

A poem about death, the ocean, and cinnamon rolls

Every year it was lobster rolls at the marina

Sunset in our eyes

Sometimes I was short a buck and you would chuckle like you were my big brother and pull out your wallet and hand me two because then I could use the other one

For a 25 cent strawberry soda.

Down at the boardwalk with the starlight in our dreams and our skin already burning with the early morning sun, I would buy a cinnamon roll and a bowl of ice cream and chew the temperature differential until summer sung and you asked for a bite. Who knew that summer could be toothsome bread in velvet ice?

If there was ever an ocean that parted, I always thought it was ours. We danced along the shore and walked through on dry land. The way you looked over the water was a man measuring the length of his days, counting all the times you had said what was right instead of what was true. You always knew you had less moons and meteor showers than the rest of us. Always knew that one day the starfish population would collapse again and you wouldn’t be there to see the return— the explosion of purple and orange dotted like candy along the shore.