chesapeake bay august

by Jeffrey Alfier

I claim warm Virginia breezes as my true balm.

Footsteps inhabit windrows of sand, the shoreline

voluptuous with sunlight and the bright haze of spindrift.

To the relief of all, the lazy grace of rainshowers

stand off in the distance drawing their borders

on the surface of the tide. Ardent swimmers undulate —

breaststrokes, flips, and butterflies.

Shorebird calls are so distant and faint

they sound estranged from the sea.

Seaweed lies winnowed from the surf,

strewn like frayed garments of castaways.

Wildflowers run indigent among sea oats —

goldenrod, horsenettle — always something with thorns.

The stone grace of a breakwater grants solace

to vessels underway, to trawlermen weathered hard

like posters of the missing.

Quitting the shore in the late light,

my eyes follow a woman holding seashells

collected in a scarf that once hid her hair

She ascends the steps to her beachside cottage,

her shadow climbing the door

to the small room that means so much.

Jeffrey Alfier’s most recent book, The Shadow Field, was published by Louisiana Literature Journal & Press (2020). Journal credits include The Carolina Quarterly, Copper Nickel, Hotel Amerika, James Dickey Review, New York Quarterly, Penn Review, Southern Poetry Review, and Vassar Review. He is founder and co-editor of Blue Horse Press and San Pedro River Review.