Walking by the Gulf of Mexico, our
footprints are ephemera but still

we do our walking, hand wrapped
in hand like the seaweed we call

dead man’s fingers. Me flotsam,
you jetsam & therein lies the tale.

Two children grown old in a place
people visit to buy t-shirts, get

a sunburn, adopt a hermit crab.
Memories thump into me

like a boat loose in a storm, gator
ramming a canoe. The wind

runs up my naked leg. “A map
to our world,” you once said,

“would start on this beach after
the hurricane. Instead of shells,

couch cushions, shoes.”