A Poem by Joe Amaral

Echoes of Broken Shells

 

My restlessness is a leaf

on a windblown branch

barely hanging on for life

 

I flutter aground

Stare into the cotton strewn

mist over damp sand blocking

 

the sea. On a park bench

zoned out sits a middle aged

pedophile-looking man. I do

 

not wish to end up like him

Idle, aimlessly glazed on the

Pacific ocean waves with his

 

paunch, long coat, dark shades

Likely heading for the public

restroom to masturbate furiously

 

to some lost form of female

conquest in his departed past. I

am not he, but we are both alone

 

Feet unconsciously seek out

quicksand, find none, just a

suckling echo as sand dollars

 

vomit ashore, their perfectly etched

symbols exuding an old fashioned

world now only heard in dead conches

 

I wander by inlanders with their blue

jeans rolled up, running away from

the ruinous tide when it kisses their

 

chubby ankles as if it was some

predator about to rip them apart

The old ladies and their small dogs,

 

the diseased handicap placard army

And the cameras and the poses and the

screaming kids with their pails and shovels

 

I am not like anybody

 

They are human reality

There is a hero in this story but

he tragically dies in the end

 

I remain

 

Joe Amaral is a paramedic who spends most his time spelunking around the California central coast, though he is an OG raised in the San Francisco East Bay Area. His poetry and short stories have appeared in many literary journals and print anthologies, including A Handful of Dust, amphibi.us, Carcinogenic Poetry, Certain Circuits, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Eclectic Flash, RED OCHRE LiT, and Underground Voices. He also has pieces published internationally via Decanto Magazine, DIOGEN, Litro, and Taj Mahal Review.