Each ferry is a popped balloon — 1 A couple in striped shirts stares across the sand. I can’t tell if they are married or deep in revolution. Children bury their eyes in beach book pages. The sun off the water is a bonfire extinguished in the wake of each rich yacht that disobeys the signs. 2 Sand…

You never develop symptoms — So much is forgotten — so much written and read and lived and slept upon, like a mattress of skin mites and tardigrades collecting on the crystal vents of a mid-century modern box spring. The cleaning lady changes my sheets every other week. She changes the dirt on the floor…

The wise advice is this: don’t look up — My heartburn is like the Arctic Ocean — it numbs my gaze from the gravel beach. Across the water is a rock covered with birds, stained like snowfall, a sanctuary of spawn, shattered eggshells that lip the surf, settle on the bottom to build more limestone. This breaking age —…