By SPENCER WILLIAMS

kind sun and gentle light
    flutters rosy fingers behind pale curtains
and dips over your shoulders to settle and sleep.
  
              at our feet    the dog
                                         siiiighs
                             and his lazy head drifts     upward
                             with a smile          :)     toothy and warm.
 
                            all is quiet, safe, and calm inside this beach house.
 
outside now and the world’s edges                        |||
                            have been smudged            \\ s o f t
       like melted sugar,   or dancing streams    stuffed with snow.
 your fast ankles flash     pale   over the cliffside;
         the wind                        l
                       c     u     r           s
 the hair nestling your neck and i think
         when you were       born the sun must have cradled     you      in its arms
         and gave you a burnished heart         with tulips
 framing the   s o f t         center,
                  where you must have been kissed by –     stars.




     someday      after  our breaths turn metallic and your hair
                                                       splin ters     at its ends
                                they will
                                       bury
                                         us
                                            side-by-side.     
   
the archeologists who find us will touch             your bones
                                                     locked
                                                     in mine.
 and they will marvel at us.

 how we believed everything we felt was brand new, with sweet lemon polish,
 how we peeled each other fruits in the early dawn,
 how we spent afternoons with the windows open and the piano loud.

 but for now,
 we have                    time.
                            so we sit by the ocean
                                                 and watch the water crowding
       o    v               e    r
              sandy         bumps  and  shells.

                            let’s do this again, again, again –
                           like each time something takes flight.
           like each time a strawberry field wakes beneath cold kisses of morning new.

                                       like each time
                                     
                                       the dog siiiighs         
                         and his lazy head drifts upward with a smile
                                              :)
                                        toothy and warm.

                                               –

                     all is quiet, safe, and calm inside this beach house.

Spencer Williams ’24 is a staff writer
swilliams24@amherst.edu

*The photo above is a Creative Commons (CC) image not created by Indicator staff.
“Beach” by sabl3t3k is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0