A long day of driving,
roads narrower than
I’m used to, coming
and going from New York
and Pennsylvania.

This long drive has landed
me in Manistee, Michigan.
Before checking in, unpacking,
I go in search of water,
deep cold Great Lakes blue.

As a child I loved Lake Ontario,
Fair Haven beach. The summer
afternoons I spent swimming,
getting sunburned. Now,
a week after Labor Day

The Fifth Avenue Beach
is near empty, except for flocks
of gulls. I take my shoes off,
as someone approaching
holiness, slip-slide my way

through shifting sand to rest
my weary feet in cold Great Lakes
water, to rest my weary eyes
on a horizon where water meets
sky, and nothing else matters.