The Dredge at Anchor​

 ​

The dredge​

at anchor​

heavy with sand​

juts its chin ​

toward the horizon​

as proud of its haul​

as if sand were gold​

 ​

The sun shines on green waves ​

green as Hydrogen​

green as sex and avocado and celery stalks​

 ​

green as an Oxygen molecule​

scared of being part of a threesome​

though it’s the most common thing ​

in the world​

 ​

The wave froth is as white​

as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder​

 ​

The sand​

laid down by the dredge  ​

spreads inert​

 hard and resistant ​

 ​

My wife enters this scene​

sinuous with Germanic libido​

carrying eighteen steins of beer in each hand​

 ​

She strides left to right​

like a duck in a shooting gallery​

in a state fair midway​

 ​

I’ve got a corn dog in my left hand​

a cone of cotton candy in my right​

I play with the idea of being a pedophile​

just because I’m bored and have nothing else to do​

 ​

The sun shines on the water​

There is no cloud anywhere to block it​

 ​

The dredge is a bodybuilder pumped with steroids​

The sand is not gold​

 ​

I injure my fist ​

punching a wall of wet sand​

 

 

 

 

Treasure Coast  ​

 ​

The beach attendant​

wears a long-sleeve​

 electric blue shirt​

takes a pull off his can of Red Bull​

sets it on a fence rail​

grunts and grimaces as he ​

clean-and-jerks four grungy lounge chairs​

carries them over his head​

down the beach​

 ​

The sun sparkles silver​

on an Atlantic dull as wash water​

 ​

The dredge boat​

a hundred yards out ​

exhales wispy black smoke​

twenty truckloads of sand in its belly​

 ​

The beach is ten feet higher today ​

than it was yesterday​

sand from eighty feet below the surface of the sea​

 ​

My kids complain​

They’ve dug deep holes​

but have found no treasure ​

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bio: Mitch Grabois was born in the Bronx and now lives in Denver. His short fiction and poetry appears in close to two hundred literary magazines, most recently The T.J. Eckleberg Review, Memoir Journal, Out of Our and The Blue Hour. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, most recently for his story “Purple Heart” published in The Examined Life in 2012. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, published by Xavier Vargas E-ditions, is available for all e-readers for 99 cents through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords (which also provides downloads to PC’s).