Spring Break Ii - On Our Way

Before my wife and I Broke out of our shell For spring break in Miami Just the two of us on our first vacation in 30 years All our kids wished us well Though I detected an ache in their voices “Next time!” one of my boys said in a farewell text Next time, I said to myself I’d love that, a next time My oldest, Hannah, said she remembered a lightning storm Raging over the evening ocean From our beachfront condo balcony And the Goodyear blimp Swallowing our entire wall of windows With its silver billow and pilots waving Face to face On a sunny day To us In the condo we had no business renting Those long ago times when I was still Daddy And Kerri was Mommy Worried about footprints in the sand And where to hide the Marlboro Light 100s Remember them? The good old days When we were an octopus coordinating seven days From sunrise to sunset Those tiny four lives fit to the scale of our hands I don’t think we ever quite got it right Nudging our kids through the tide of time Soaked in salt and sun And their little drooping bathing suits Throwing a red ball to the fetching gloves Of the turquoise waves Plastic yellow shovels and pails Hung from their hands Mimicking the divinity of their very flawed parents Told them the story of when I was a kid Down here My mom and dad let me swim By moonlight in the ocean (This is the pre-Jaws era) And when I came out of the water A Man-O-War was wrapped around my leg I screamed in agony all night My mom saying, I don’t know what else to do I don’t know what else to do Bobby So now I remember the welts of the electric tentacles That storm over the ocean Dug up from Hannah’s own memory I could see it too My wife and kids’ huddled faces Peeking through the curtains of clouds The six of us Sunburned and tired just before bed Framed forever in that upper floor of windows The bolts of lightning Streaking down to the shore Striking The turtle shell of the tumultuous sea.