Baskets brimmed with peaches
the color of sunset inside;
others, white with red-veined pulp.
The short rides to Long Island farms
were like this – colorful, abundant.
Food plucked or picked at sunrise
arrives in time for pre-dinner snacks.
As we children trudged up 400 steps
from a long day at the beach, there from shady
morning to shady twilight, leaving mothers
free of screaming kids.
 
With salty skin and seaweed stuck to our bottoms
we’d tromp in with sandy feet
on the cracked linoleum of the bungalow.
The summerhouse, two steps above a tent.
Our lives made simple, privacy relinquished
as we escaped from our city apartments.
 
The summer place for first kisses and dates,
softball heroics, first cigarettes smoked on
moonless nights at the top of the cliff
so high above the beach, yet the waves
even at low tide could be heard, rocks
being washed back and forth, smoothing
their ridges, as we looked forward to
another day at the beach, burning
our skin, polishing our strokes.
 
We would ferret out secret corners
that older kids no longer wanted,
the pre-teens would drift from
one hiding place to another
to create routes to the grown-up world.


© by Maria Lisella.
Used here with the author’s permission.