Moorings / Walking the Dog in Autumn I Stop to Tie My Shoelace

By Emily Franklin
(this appeared in Lunch Ticket)

Suppose you say water.

We’re on the boat, making for Babson Island, one of three tiny beach slabs that connects at high tide. We set anchor, mark the drift, account for wind, row to the shallows. This place has sand dollars. You find some, bring them to me. I will wrap them in tissue to assure a safe journey, feel something split in me when one breaks years after the moments on this island. It’s funny how we know these things: A song will have meanings we can only guess at—the strains of trumpet or your daddy’s rich and your mama’s good-looking making me curl like a fist; the smell of soap, or brie cheese, these things will kill me later, but we don’t know this yet. For now, we’re still on shore, collecting things. Each piece of kelp, a malformed shell, the sand dollars. I want to fill my pockets with them, add them to the collection of you. Even broken, these objects will rest on the mantle as unruined remains.