Fisher Beach by Elizabeth Spires

Poems

September 1995

Fisher Beach

Burke

was right!

Cape Cod

Low tide. Umbrellas dot the beach
in shades of watermelon red, sky blue, and lemon yellow.
The sand bar, completely exposed, lies
like a long spoke poking out into the water.
The bay is warm enough to swim in.
A baby, trailed by its mother, crawls in the shallows,
dipping its nose in, then shaking
its head back and forth violently, like a dog.
The heads of fathers bob in the deeper water;
relaxed, they float on their backs, spout water,
and bellow like sea lions to make their children laugh.
A woman, thin, gray and frail,
is wheeled onto the beach in a deck chair;
an old sea bird, she flings her head back,
taking long, slow, deep breaths, grateful to simply be here.
The beach is casual, disorderly, adrift
in shifting dunes, blowing pap ...

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Elizabeth Spires' new book of poems, The Wave-Maker, was published by Norton in July 2008.

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