Yesterday

I don't even bother to lock the car since the area is deserted.
The sky is a paragraph of sadness and the wind a scythe
slicing through me. I put on my sweatshirt, grab my phone,

and almost run up the boardwalk to the beach, snapping a picture
as I go. I have a letter from a fiend in a sunny envelope I plan
to read on one of the benches, but, as soon as I sink my sneakers

in the sand, I know it will be too cold. Instead I walk around
and notice an area fenced off for the nesting plovers. I don't see
any, though. I take a few photos of the layers of steel waves,

then say goodbye for today. I tighten the strings of my hoodie
and head back over the dunes of short, spiky, grasses. Stop. Lilac
blossoms arch over the sidewalk. I put my face right up into them

and take a big sniff of memory. Of our old lilacs in the back yard.
Of a vaseful on my desk at school. Of walking by the neighbor's
and plucking a few flowers then chewing on them. That sweet

bitter fragrance on my tongue. I don't steal any today but I think
about it. I glance up and spy a sentence of blue. I continue on
to my car, lilacs in my lungs, breathing in the the poetry of nature.