Running along the choppy coast of Compo Beach, a child on the cusp of fifteen feels the chilled sand beneath his raw feet.
“Where’s the poetry in sand?” he asks the waves gasping for air.
The breeze was catching up, so without a reply from the waves, he sets off. The innocent-enough boy hid behind the famous Minuteman statue, at the moment depicting how America struck the British from behind, like a cold, or a Connecticut spring. It was late November, and yet there was another boy rollerblading inside the caged basketball court.
“A wheeled prisoner,” the boy whispered to the ironclad Minuteman.
Immediately, the smirk was wiped off the boy’s face though, as the statue tried to struggle against its encasing.
“I’m very sorry, sir, but can I ask you something?”
The statue said nothing verbally.
“How many children come and go, playing with hearts blown by Michelangelo?”
Again, the alloyed statue said nothing, not appearing to be interested in glass hearts or blossoming curiosity (even though I was).
“How many birds flee, from a poet’s feathered simile?” the kid asked, not knowing if he was on to something.
For the third time, the statue said nothing.
“Am I boring you? I’m sorry. I’m supposed to be meeting someone. That’s right. She’s really pretty too. ‘But isn’t beauty just a fleeting pheasant?’ Or is it ferret? I’m pretty sure it’s ferrets, but ferrets aren’t very poetic, don’t you think? Their eyes are all squinty, like an inside-joke or an ultimatum issued by Switzerland. Anyway, there she is!” There was a girl of sea foam porcelain that popped out of the choppy Westport waters, and beckoned to the bemused boy.
“Swim with me,” she said. “I’ll be your muse, and you’ll be one of Odysseus’ crew without the wax in his ears or just captivated by my bare breasts.”
“Ok,” replied the boy. “Just know that I’ll follow you, like Dante followed Virgil to shake Satan’s peppermint hands in Hell.”
“But I’m a fish and this isn’t Hell. This is the Atlantic Ocean,” the sea goddess wittingly responded.
“It’ll be our aqueous Hell then, and besides, I want to play with the symbolism in your scales.”
And so it was that the ironclad Minuteman, the kid with the rollerblades, some discarded sea shells, that kid’s dad, and I all witnessed a young generic Westportian walk entranced into the shivering Atlantic Ocean like one of Odysseus’ crew captivated by the song of the Pied Piper; or maybe he was just high (or “inebriated” according to the papers). Maybe he just had a problem that could only be solved after going to the Ben and Jerry’s on main street, ordering a large “Orange and Cream” ice cream (because his mom liked it), and throwing himself into it until he discovered the orange peels that gave up their innocence in order to please the endorphins coursing through his tongue. Maybe he just needed to blanket himself in beach sand even though it was forecasted to snow later; but then again he could still taste the spoiled cream in his mouth, the cream that went into his lungs instead of his now-upset stomach grumbling about hot cocoa. He was hungry, sad, “inebriated,” sensitively desensitized, judged, abandoned, discovered, betrayed, injured, broody, melancholic, redundant, dragged on, prosaic, poetic, artistic, redundant, chaste, resentful, confused, enlightened, and glad to finally see something open up to him that wasn’t broken up into stanzas.
"But children come and go with hearts crafted by Michelangelo," sang the Westport waters contently as she savored the boy's creamy citron lungs. In retrospect, I should have applauded, or cried, whichever seems more appropriate.
