I.
Three inches down, the sand
is still warm from the sun
long after night falls.

The grains hold themselves,
their warmth,
in small, quartzy bodies
on the higher-up slope
which the tide seldom touches.

Not ten feet from the salt water,
I lie with them;
I feel their strange fingerprint,
calling me, telling me

to stop being tired
from tomorrow –
to learn to fall off the edge of my dream
and still hold the warmth
of the sun,
three inches down.

II.
The space between thoughts
and out-loud is
thinner
nearer to sleep – even as I

sing to the dark,
breaking waves
and I’m not sure
what’s in my mind and what’s
out there.

III.
I seem to find myself
always at the place
where the sea-foam
turns back

and I follow it,
hoping for and dreading
the feeling of it on my toes.

IV.
There is still sand,
warm,
in the crease of my elbow