I was playing with the wet sand
between my tan feet and pink toes,
feeling the breeze on my shoulder blades
counting how many waves passed in between thoughts of you
thoughts of what I'd come home to,
when someone's voice interrupted your memory.

I looked up to an automatic worried face,
pale white in the Caribbean sun
with scruffy chest hair and a stomach
but the brownest eyes I had ever seen
next to yours in a stunning comparison.


He asked me where I was from
and when the reflection of something American
rang in my voice as I told him my home state,
I saw a little relief in his stature, breathing with ease.
He told me about Boston.
How that's where he's from.
And I was speechless.

After an empty silence, he crossed his arms and sniffed
something staggered and unsure.
That's my kids over there, in the waves
he said quietly with a small gesture
towards two beauties crashing into the water's heaps
their mother close behind.
I smiled wide as he continued to say

They think they're going home tomorrow
but their not.
That place will never be the same.

I could hear my heart break in seven different ways.
They were merely 10.
His wife held her breath as they swam,
knowing the waves were like the world
ebbing and pulling at her creations
and there wasn't much she could do
but reel them in for as long as she could,
before they were cast out again.

He told me how scared he was,
how he feared the faces of humanity
that his kids would have to shield themselves from
if they were ever going to grow up in some security.
I hadn't much to respond with
other than that I was just as scared as he was
and that he was the strongest dad
that he could be for them.

At first I found it weird
that he would put such trust in the pouring of words
to a complete stranger,
but then I realized that maybe that's what he needed after all.
I was the first one he could recognize,
the only one here that would understand
about the crumpled newspapers in his room or the phone ringing off the hook,
the countless emails he'd been through, the muting of the tv
so the kids wouldn't hear too much news
and ruin their innocence to quickly
on a vacation they originally intended
to get away.
But it all came back to them,
harder than anyone would ever wish upon someone.

So I let him weave his worry into my soul,
let him talk me senseless about the coward he felt he was
beneath the good front he was putting on for his family.
I was that somebody he needed to relate.
And I made sure that when he thanked me kindly,
saluted me with a goodbye and a wave
that he knew I would pray for something other than you,
that he was bigger than me
and awfully brave, too.