A photo of the end of the world,
framed and hung on flocked
working-class wallpaper. A beach
deserted under bluffs
fuzzy with stubble weed.
Could be anywhere: Cape Cod, Wales,
Nova Scotia, Brittany. Often
we walk there, down on the beach,
in sleep so bottomless
we could be treading on stars.
You hung this photo to tease me
back fifty years to a night
of beer and sex and rumpled tides
ebbing and flowing toward dawn.
Then, sodden flesh and the end
of everything draped over us
in a stink of wool and fish.
William Doreski’s work has appeared in various e and print journals and in several collections, most recently The Suburbs of Atlantis (AA Press, 2013
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