The Beach
by Tyler Bigney

The beach – dead seaweed, broken glass,
brown filtered cigarette butts pushed down into sand.
I walked to see boats, waves, perpetually
white-capped. The war between my brain
and my heart has not yet reached its climax,
but soon my bedroom will be a champagne bottle,
toasting in celebration, or toasting goodbye.
I fumble with my glass mutely, eyes on my shoes.
I raise my head up, but there’s only me, the beach,
my feet dug into cold sand. My grandmother riding in,
in front of a sad sky, on a red rocking horse,
like the picture my father has of her taped to the
top corner of his dresser mirror. The world needs
more gardens. I want to write a love poem that will speak
to the masses, hummingbirds a metaphor for the heart.
No one writes love poems, they’re too hard, or it hurts,
or the heart is too tricky a subject to handle.
In front of me right now – a ghost, some blackbirds
above the Northumberland Strait , a thousand dead
jellyfish, belly up, glowing under a sunless sky.

Tyler Bigney lives in Nova Scotia, Canada. His poetry, and fiction have appeared in Pearl, Nashwaak Review, Neon, Poetry New Zealand, and Iodine, among others. You can find him, and more of his writing at www.tylerbigney.com

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