On a blanket, immersed in the satisfying smell
of freshly cut grass-tips exposed
like green smoke stacks pumping out
the familiar scent of the season-reading poetry
out of a book that seems impossible to finish-
a ladybug, a red-winged lunar lander, descends
perfectly onto my shoulder. Black dots, one white
one from the staring sun's reflection, line
its shell in perfect rows of three. An internal grin,
and I turn the page, ready

for "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."
She extends her scarlet, apple-wedge wings
and for a second, hovers
just above the rise at the end of my collarbone.
In this instant, suspended like the ladybug,
my breath halts before my mouth-I am reminded of Frost
on horseback in the blanketed Woods, thinking
of resting there forever. My thoughts are with this bug
and I join the sun's stare at her with empty lungs.
          Is she my Snowy Woods?
          Can I fly away with her,
          leaving the grass and book
          and breathless lungs behind?
          Am I ready?
She ascends, leaving me grounded, swallowing air.

The diamond-laced waves snatch up the light from the lamps
on the porches and boardwalks snuggled
between and behind the bosom of the dunes.
Enveloped in the soft moan
of the ocean, I am somehow lost
on this straight line of moon-cooled
coast and brittle seaweed.
The night-washed silhouettes
of the houses and the lights--
like jewels on the crowns of the dunes--
all look the same under
the blanket of the sleeping shore.

My shadow is laid down
on the grey sand by the lamps. As I walk
          it falls in
and climbs out
of old footprint craters and scales
the summit of a rounded mound--a washed over
sand castle from earlier that day.

The water crawling up the sand erodes
the day-old dents and shovel holes--
          the white bubbles in the foam
          and the rubbed-on white bubbles on my toes and heels,
          (I didn't give up my sandals soon enough)--
I've been walking too long.

Stopping, I let the water clutch my ankles and cool
the burning blisters on my feet.
The moon--a bright eye paused in the middle of
blinking--rests in the sky amid a perfect reflection
of the ocean below. The highlighted wave crests are the stars
on earth. Standing within the reach of the rising and
falling arms of the ocean,
          my feet sink
          into the sand,
getting buried and packed in by the rushing mix of water, salt, and suspended
sand-dust. I have to keep looking.

The water gurgles when I pull myself out
of the sucking sand. I turn away
and continue walking, just being lost.
The string of lights strewn along the embankments
of the beach stretch out until they disappear. The far
away ones wink every now and then--
the only time I know the
waving
          sea oats
are there.

So I am just walking, stumbling
into holes I don't see,
dodging
          a sand crab scuttling across
the beach powder.
Lost, looking for the porch light that is mine.