Stephen Ackerman
NETS
for
].A.,
L.H.
The day on the beach we borrowed
On the beach, we watched
A smallcraft fill and rise
And fall
In a sudden braided rainstorm.
Later, after the Lord
Heard your prayer,
That sweet, generous, wholehearted
"Help me," then night came.
And the rain simplified the beach,
Purified the beach of its bathers,
Blankets, its handwritten tennis courts
And invisible nets;
Emptied it, like an entrance
Through which they have all departed.
You could not postpone entering
That hope, too clouded, handwritten,
Too human, the marginal way
Of the tide.
How completely you disappeared!
An undertone we listen for, not to.
