A black puppy chases
His mestizo mother up the beach.
A few adults sit sipping Corona Extra,
In lazy hammocks.

Down below, lithe legs
Scramble for solid ground
Along the supple, dark, surface,
Chasing a mini black-and-white ball,
Until it finds a home between
Two pieces of driftwood.

The pull of the sea is strong.
You can almost feel it from
The tables above the shoreline.

The coast seems chancy,
But beauty hides the beast, and
The waves get their chance to throw
The crimson-burned bodies
Around for a time.

Black sand covers all, as we lay,
In a melted pool of jade,
Of perfect temperature.
A one-legged Civil War vet stands peering out
At the ocean, perhaps wondering why

The sky is gray.
Two nuns wander into the horizon.
The vet doesn’t move his focus from the sea,
And the nuns keep to their path.
Did I remember my camera?