January 13, 2025Family Vacation
Long Beach, NC, 1965
My father in his red bathing trunks and bare feet,
his back glistening with suntan lotion liberally
applied by my mother, was not the same man who
came home tired from sitting at a desk all day
when what he wanted to do was move. Slim and wiry,
he lived inside his lithe body like ball lightning
ricocheting around a locked room. He looked forward
all year to summer vacation—loved running over
the hard-packed sand with its shards of shell, its swirls
of seaweed—and diving headfirst into the waves. He told
us once that his father couldn’t swim, but was built
so heavy and solid, he could crawl on the ocean floor
like a giant lobster, holding his breath as long as a pearl
diver. But Dad was a torpedo in the water, head down,
arms churning—swimming so far out to sea, my brother
and I were afraid he’d never come back. So when he
turned at last and headed for the beach, we sank
to our knees with relief, waving as if he could see
us, as if we were little lighthouses guiding
our father to a safe and sandy shore.
from #86 – Poetry Prize