She lays in the sand
Her face underground.
Her brother's a band
Yet he makes not one sound.

He remembers she said
"Be quiet and still."
He won't be punished instead,
So oh yes, he will.

Across from the two
Lie a couple in wait,
For a baby named Lou
With a diagnosis they hate.

Lou's mother found out
With her husband close and near
That there was a doubt
That Lou's birth would be clear.

An old woman walks past,
Bathing suit dripping wet.
She thought her marriage would last,
But she was treated as a pet.

Her husband came by
Every night after three.
Filled up with his lies,
She said "good luck without me."

She walks past a little boy
Who's more red than beige
He's building sandcastles with his toy,
A shovel just about his age.

He wants to build high
and support, so it won't fall-
To show his parents in the sky
That he's still theirs, after all.

He looks up at a girl
Who he finds quite cute
Her eyes are a whirl
And her mouth is quite mute.

She gave up speech
After seeing an accident at six.
She remembers the leech;
Blood and bugs don't truly mix.

Her father is there, weak,
Holding a dent in his ear.
His daughter can't speak
And he himself cannot hear.

He was born that way.
He couldn't hear his daughter's cries
When she was in the bay,
Surrounded by mud pies.

A fish now darts
From a man who was told
From Harvard that he had the smarts
But he was far too old.

The man now lives his waking moments
Being called a basket case.
Holds his disappointment, laments
His once better place.

A Harvard grad is on the shells
A four-point-oh in pre-law.
In his mind are the graduation bells
Of the promotion he just saw.

His daughter is done with junior high
But his son's only five.
Both can buy what they want to buy-
A perk of being rich and alive.

A woman here knows how great
And happy life should be:
One afternoon, a bit late
For an event, she was carefree.

With her daughter she drove
When a tornado hit.
The danger above in the grove
Made the sparkle in her daughter's eyes unlit.

A girl by the dock knows the opposite pain
She saw her mother die alone
Surrounded by strange men's gain
And their frustrated tone.

The girl promised herself that
She'd never turn out like her mom.
But her scratches aren't from her cat-
Rather, her boyfriend, Dom.

Hundreds of people crowd on the isle
Splashing or building or sending out shrills.
While they try to forget their life for awhile,
The world goes on still.