My feet haven’t sketched the push and pull 
of a beach in years, so you offer to lead me 
to Atlanta and its aquarium, the largest in the States, 
the one I told you a friend told me about, 
as if untamed ocean matches filtered water 
and screens with my blanched face staring back at me, 
distorted and cerulean. You never learned
that I never did adore the beach as you do, 
how the tides take and spit, how they become soft
before they unhinge their jaws, swallowing.