Running on Sand(Stirring, 1/08)

While I was slow on grass

or concrete (cemented to first

base, almost always “it,” drain

on the relay team) I could run

like hell on sand. Maybe

it’s my bones, hollow

as bird’s, a slight alteration

in my DNA, or maybe

the brand of peanut butter

my mother bought, a cheap

one from a lower shelf.

Maybe I got bitten

by a radioactive crab or

slept with a lost pearl in my bed

or from my cradle

saw my mother sucking clams.

Who knows?

But at the beach on hot

white sand, I kicked up storms –

you didn’t want to run

behind me, trying to breathe

crushed fragments of a hundred

billion shells.

And on the wet gray sand

by ocean’s edge, my footprints

welled and disappeared

like skywriting or summer

smoke. Spiderlegs they called

me, Sandrunner, Beachripper,

Shorelinelightening vanished,

sail on the horizon, blurring into fog.