Figures On A Beach

by Steven Rea

A woman and man stand erect
on a stretch of sand
not holding hands, but close,
staring across the harbor,
feet planted like actors rehearsing a scene
on a tidal proscenium —
kelp and rocks,
a crustacean carcass, a smashed can
glinting in late sun.

Are they mapping a life together?
Manifesting the future in steadfast accord?
Betray a lover, abandon a partner
in bleak calamity?
Or are they simply parsing
the David Lynch documentary they watched the night before,
chain-smoking as he talks about Twin Peaks,
terror and Transcendental Meditation?
Or mulling what to make
for dinner? But if so
they are going at it with a great solemnity
and purpose,
contemplating saffron and trout roe on a pasta, perhaps,
or mussels in a beery broth with crusty baguettes
and a good cheese?

An onlooker, a bystander, wouldn’t think so, though,
looking on and standing by
Something is happening here — cue
Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man”—
and then the woman turns her head
and a dog tromps into the water,
chasing the waves,

the dog’s owner entering stage left
with a stick and a whoop,
and a guy who looks like a geriatric Elvis
forages around the driftwood
where rocks and sand meet the tarmac,
looking for loose change, lost marbles.
He could tell the couple
a thing or two, show them what’s
in his shopping cart, the one he stole
from the supermarket and now keeps his
prized possessions in, his redemption vessels.
He knows something.
Everybody knows something.