Paul wakes up
one morning
on an unfamiliar beach
with palm trees,
fiddler crabs
and a deflated
beach ball.
He rolls over
on the sand,
face up
to the sky
and asks
a hovering seagull
how his Chicago
car crash
turned into
a tropical shipwreck.
The waves
crash the shore
as the tide
turns inward
and a loud drip
as each wave
recedes into itself
drums the gulls’ calls
into mechanical
whirls and
monitoring beeps
while a shadowy
figure
places a cuff
about his arm
and pumps a ball.
copyright © 2020 Kenneth P. Gurney
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