Intimacy in a beach town

He asks me to go for hot dogs and

ice cream on marine parade. A few clouds are grey but

the sky is blue and the sun shines white.

My skin turns pink even in the shade.

The air doesn’t smell salty, like I expect.

Oceanfronts should smell salty, but this smells like decay,

and I wonder how many bodies in the ocean are bloated

and which would rise or sink, and

who are the vultures underneath,

in the dark, and

do ghost whales exist? Trying to eat

plankton that will never

fill their translucent bellies?

Are there pirates, sunken with their treasures,

who have become ghost hunters in the watery grave?

He turns to me to ask if I’m ready for sorbet.

Silently, with a smile, I breathe in the smell

of all my unspoken questions

and nod.