I hold her hand
Her skin—wrinkled and loose and warm,
green walls of veins
I pinch it softly, and the fold stands,
just for a moment,
it stays like a ridge
running from wrist to knuckle,
before it collapses
like sand we pushed together to make a wall
for a castle—
solid for just a second
before it was swept away,
“And so stop building them
because there’s no point,” we say.
They disappear without a trace
and we go back
with our bag full of shells,
we can’t wash off
their ocean stench for days
our nails still thick with
grime, for days
and sand—fine, gold, smooth
turns up in places unexpected
And we say,
what we made
disappeared, without a trace.
