Sandy hook

Shadows stretch from

building’s edge.

Tattered billows

laundry on lines

that tense in winter

between long nights

and brevity of day–

world gets small

if we stay too long.

We leave Brooklyn in a

marvelous motion of motor

a habit of highway

leading to New Jersey beaches

where the city is only faint light

a buoyancy of trash

flickering ozone coronas

degrading decibels washing ashore

quietly, here:

broken bottle bottoms,

softened plastic,

polished teeth and bones,

Foam gurgling from ocean's edge.

And all along the way,

You are a fool flinging

gold-gilded knots of laughter

from the car window.

Now, looking out at the city

beyond the ocean’s endless shore

–a whale rib’s moonlit crescent –

stars are pinpricks on your pupils.

I know by the reflection there that

you hold whole universes, precious,

on the films of your eyes and

hardly dare to realize.