This is their place on the beach -
open air, wood, glass, polished marble.
She stares through waxen light into a sky shredded with pink clouds.
The day moves on, unlike the air and pollen that stick to her skin.
She is thinking about the motion of the day, the weather of movement,
and what may come in its wake. What kind of grief will wash ashore,
as she waits in the last gasp of a blank sun?
The day is slipping by. Hard choices remain. She sips red wine,
focuses her gaze on the long shelf of purple twilight over the horizon.
The hesitation that has held her taut all day begins to ebb.
The violet light and receding water, effortlessly, relentlessly, fall away.
If only she could move too, follow the light and tide, make a past of the present,
and leave it behind. Her glass darkens in the absent light, she pushes it away.
As movement of day into night folds over her, the peaceful resolution of moving on,
a kind of happiness, or reason enough to think of it, settles in the dusk.