Beach House

KEVIN SALVAGGIO

I. Beach

You there on the back

of her wave, staying still

and moving with the wet

things. You there under

going a life sentence

of burning

paying for your years

of silence and passiveness,

lying on back after back

swaying to Bach's compositions

riding his notes up and down

gathering seashells in the spaces

thinking those life guards

are still watching you steal

from others. You: Still

water and still stalling

in the groove of quartz.

and you: a

sleeping

mass in minor Beach.

II. House

Day puts on one of his

bedspreads, covers his sleepiness

with a covering of beach ball sun

sewed onto all transparent blues

in existence. I look up

from washing my apple

to see him shuffle past

his four-poster counting

the air particles in the room

separating the bad germs from

the good ones tucked

in closets

building up resistance to another

too-bright iteration of the longest

month. And just when Night finds

the time to unwrap his dark

mattress from its light facade,

I realize I never made my bed. 

Kevin Salvaggio currently resides on Long Island, NY where he spends most of his free time (outside of waitering and temp jobs) writing obsessively in attempts at finding his true poetic voice. He is a graduate of the Sarah Lawrence MFA program, and co-author of Hurricane Butterfly.