Casey Gilfillan

The skin knows before the brain can process,
The dry cast sticking upon me like a
Fast-acting leech as I take the first step.
The sky smiles its daggering beams of
Poison that burrow and multiply.

I feel the sandpaper kiss as it roasts
The barrier of flesh, my hands can’t move
Quickly enough to outwit the light that
Consumes. I tighten my grasp, yet the
Shadow lifts and I am left in permanent spotlight.

The cloth inverts, threatens a dance in the ocean.
With nowhere to cower, I am to face it head on
As it nestles in the focus of view
And stillness of mind, leaving a blurred sheen.
I see the smear of color, the hazy outline of shape.

White sands stretch out further than eyes can follow
Radiant and lustrous as the heat they
Receive and emit; I am softened to beauty
By the sun’s berating, numb and with awe
As the trickling remnants of water lazily climb the shore.

There are too, too many people around.
I imagine it is barren before me,
That I have found a pocket of shade, that the
Terrible brilliance bellowing from above
Cannot permeate.

I mimic and hide my face, garment to
Elbows and forearms; darkness clouds.
All is peaceful. The chatter dulls, the
Seagulls caw distantly, the wind weaves
Itself through the waves, washing up like a whisper on land.

But I feel the daggers edging deeper,
Hands work with haste to protect, not enough
Haste and I am burning on a red towel on the white sand.
A sputtering through the air prompts me,
I restore vision to a screeching halt.

A plane floats aimlessly across the slice
Of ocean, tagged with a flowy tail of letters.
Drink this, buy this, it says and I’m paraphrasing
Of course, but the message was closer to
A gnat than legibility: a nuisance, wanted by none.