If you go to the ocean, you can smell the bay,
(This is miraculous.)

An old lady with a walker
is practicing walking
like an old lady
back and forth on the wood planked dock.

Maybe
she is bending to tie her shoe,
or to listen for the bell of a school of silver fish.

The wood is shiny
(much more than you could possibly remember)
and the fish (whom we'd attribute to magic)
are gone.

The phenomenon
let's call it autumn
breathes heavy to keep us aware that it ever existed.

It's not nearly
as cloudy as it should be
but then
maybe weather knows more than you do about the calendar.
(Showers were last month.)

The bay's is the most aesthetic stink of all.

The old lady blows her nose so as to better enjoy it.

I grew up on an island
a real one.

Then I moved
to a mainland
thought it was an island;
the salt and rain makes that alright.

The old lady wants to go swimming.