We are sunburned and getting married, slowly, all of us. We bring a beer into the shower thinking we could live out the rest with sand in our hair. We look at age, collected among the shells and sea glass — when Sean breaks a chair and falls onto the deck, we all say He wasn’t even leaning over and gather the oversized splinters into piles we thought would be larger. In the late afternoon we go to the shore, looking at what could be a continent on the other side, the promise of old keys, terrified of being pulled in.
