by Matthew Roy

There’s nothing wrong with building sandcastles, fortresses which crumble, slide back into the low-tide beach, even as we pile, pack, smooth their bastions and battlements. The grains of sand are absorbed in piles back into the world, returned to the universe we pulled them from. You smelled like sunscreen and a brisk shower and an afternoon nap under white covers, a fan turning in the corner as we hid from the season’s heat.

impermanent you
freckles dusting your shoulders
I try to hold on

Building sandcastles that might last a morning or a day, even if we wished they could last longer, even if we wished they could last forever. They taught us how to build, at least. And if I still feel a moment, a memory, a year or a lifetime, does that mean it never ended, even if it seems like it’s over? Even when it’s been absorbed back into the shore?

summer’s sun filtered
through the fan-blown gauze curtains
our bodies, pale light

I hold on. I hold on.

Image by Susie Hathaway via Pexels