Moonlight, I was tired. Even waking, the shore was distant and on edge, ghost rim nearing blue. I could make out clouds, finally I heard the gulls and they were swirling, maybe I was meat. Sand in my hair, clumps, my fingers gritty. A face looking in the dark.
She was sleeping, fire crackle along the chin line. Hand beneath hand under cheek under the weight of the sky. Ashes just inches from her hair, embers and flicker. She breathed and I stopped, I had been waking the sea.
Our son sat on the bank, jetty rocks, wishing for storm. He turned, flotsam, hair at all angles. “When did it get so cold?” he asked, “Daddy, when did it get so cold?”
His sister balancing at the edge of waves, crashing. She laughed and he pointed, crouched knees. Blue snow drifts in the sky the sound of dust.
She stirs inches, pushes up against the sand, notices the waves come to our daughter’s feet. She smiles, stretches, leans forward. The hint of teeth at dawn she says, “did you sleep well?”
Had I slept? I rub my face, brittle hands, weathered skin. My son points away from the jetty, clouds running from the horizon, trick of light at the edge. “Yes,” I say, my voice full of sand, “yes I did.” I stand and joints churn, sea salt. “But I’m still tired, you?”
She closes her eyes, breathes, I can hear our son complain about the shells. Edges and grooves, red porcelain and shards. Sea gulls scatter from our daughter’s laughter. I look behind us. Spatter of green blades, tufts for yards, lush embankment cut by sudden stone, then the rest of the world. She opens her eyes, asks, “Didn’t we have children?”
“They’re playing, I think,” I nod towards them. “Terrorizing.”
She sits up, folds her legs as the horizon begins to slowly burn. Hands on hips our daughter scolds her brother for splashing the waves away from the shore.
“At some point,” she says, hair dancing an imaginary crown, short whipping, strands clinging to her jaw. “At some point we will have to own up to them.” Arms resting on her knees, head resting on her arms, my eyes resting on her back, brown and red in the sunrise. “Lay claim to them.”
“The world’s already claimed them,” I say, and my throat trembles from an emptying sky.
The sound of rustling; of thick, bitten nails folding into the darkness. One hand cradles the other before it disappears, comforts it. Wet sand suddenly pressed, sturdy feet.
I knelt beside her, ran hesitant fingers from her hair to her neck to her spine. Our children waged war on each other, armed with the sea, bursts of laughter. In-between the quiet, she leans backs, I steady her. She sighs, “we never stood a chance.”