Upon his egg he bears a linen hatoid thing
constructed from what used to be
his pocket-handkerchief, and
visions of other men near bathing-machines
and ocean bald.
It is fragrant of stout midage and scent of
willing participation in
the things of suburb far away; he is here
a different sort of beast, and singular.
(We have photos in his one-piece suit,
with straps to hold the vest from falling
to the sand.)

Like a model, walks the runway beach, waiting patiently
for his linen hatkerchief to fall away
or blow in clement weather 'cross the sands
that shift us all away to
morrow.

It is a sunhat, and we laugh at his protection; do not
know of sun factors and cancer
but we think he means to keep his brain alight
by fending off the rays of heat.

Now the brain is almost gone, and memory,
but I remember him in trunks
and hatkerchief
and sand
and the middle of my mind,
until it, too, grain and sift and slide away
into the darkness where his mind has gone,
hatkerchiefed, determined and
quite certain that it knows
the empty way.

©  Copyright, 2000; Malcolm Beckett