Tourist Season

by Sarah A. O’Brien

we watch armies of retreating fiddler crabs
while you refer to sand beneath our feet
as the “graveyard of the sea.”

we debate the emotional lives of canines,
and cruelties of keeping prairie dogs
locked in china cabinets.

we murmur sweet nothings that mean everything,
your morning smile putting sunrise to shame,
clichés tumbling from my smitten lips.

we drive despite eyes half-mast,
“you’re my world,” you proclaim,
handing me our mangled umbrella.

we race to make the bus, but then,
beating it there, you decide instead
to hold me in your arms another night.

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Tourist Season was originally published in Ghost City Review.

Sarah A. O’Brien enjoys dark chocolate and light wordplay. Sarah’s work has previously appeared in The Alembic, Every Writer, The Screech Owl, Snapping Twig, Ampersand Literary, Third Point Press, Unbroken Journal, Random Sample and is forthcoming in Allegro Poetry Magazine. Follow her adventures: @fluent_SARAcasm