half asleep in a beach chair   i imagine my body young and capable

when we were children   our mothers drove us places  
they waited    read books    knitted Afghans   
wore big hats to block out the sun
they stood at a distance   
waiving their long arms for us to come back down the shore   
we had drifted too far   

my children are up the beach 
naked and rolling in the breakers 

a pregnant couple perched on tidy towels 
take pictures of their diminutive dog 
they don’t know who they are becoming 
so they set their sights on knowing their Pekingese 

our mothers were killing the currency of their lives    
in harlequin    and back loop
waiting   agitated and petulant in the HOV lane   
for their lives to begin 
all the while    watching    their bodies    
decay    at a rate slightly more accelerated    
than the arc of their children’s growth 

i doze    the salt tightening on my skin   
hair crystallizing 
my children have drifted so far up the shore 
they are mere dots in the curve of the land