Lucky All Their Lives

What would you like?  Some surf,
a walking beach, a rock to stare at.
About seventy degrees, a few old people,
bent over, looking for agates.
They ignore my hand in yours.
They hear the backdrop waves and the gulls
mewling, the far-off cough of seals.
How about sunset, the West’s marvelous feat?
The light that soaks the buoy every few seconds
has come on now.  Along the arc of the beach
campfires rise up like night-blooming flowers.
It’s enough, just the way the atmosphere begins
to smell different, far away, to include
even what’s long past.  A simple café
seems full of possibility as if it’s new,
or reminds us we were here once before.
The man in the corner wears his hat
indoors.  He slurps his coffee,
writes in a notebook.  The waitress looks
at her watch and then the door.
You get the impression her hair, confined
in an invisible net, would like to let
itself down.  Smile for me.  Steer me
into the pungent, oceanic night.
When the clouds part, the moon
will illuminate
the path to our place