If there were no clouds rolling
across the sky, no waves lapping
against the clay and sandy shores,
the T.V. wouldn’t tell me thrice,
“The sun is shining,”
and I would not remember
that I will be soaring
above the wrong ocean
with the kind of regret
that can be cast in marble and bronze:
the safest place is one
where no one misses work
when the shadows come.

By Heidi Turner