Mother,
remember the grass-woven hat on my head
and the freshly cut lilac blooms
opening its mouth to scream with the sea?
Remember the water twitch around my ankles
launching me away, away, a skipping stone?
Remember that I was a sloshy footprint melting into
quicksand and Polaroid pictures?

Remember the last time I went with you,
Zephyr’s hands snatched my hat,
the lilacs wrinkled and gray,
enticing the waves to a Frisbee game;
but the tongues lapped it away
lost in a fickle stomach.

Remember when I probed the sands for a bottle
and found a glass coke bottle cracked,
covered in red seaweed.
I snatched a Polaroid snapshot and shoved it
into the bottle, and
threw it out to my hat to disrupt its journey
but it fell short.
Choppy waves pounded a wall between me and
my possessions sailing on.

A few years came, then crashed on by;
walking hand in hand with my child
tissue paper clouds blanketed the sky as the red sunset climbed
stretching his gnarled hands for more, more, more;
my feet sank into the semi-moist compact sand
Zephyr blew back, into our faces,

The calm waters shimmered with red-hot light
a backdrop for a silhouette
a cracked bottle covered with barnacles.
It gently rocked onto the beach and
my daughter flicked off the shells
to pull out a grass-woven hat
interwoven with shriveled white lilac flowers.

I felt my daughter’s smile on my cheek
as she put the hat on my head.
It fit perfectly.

Mother,
I remember when I was a little girl.

Don’t you?