Gas man told us not to walk out on the flats
At low tide because "every year we lose a visitor
Out there by the bend, they get all mesmerized
I guess when the water rushes out and that sand,
It glimmers like toothpaste, what with the mountains
All snowy in a ring round the bay, the sparkles
Shining in the still water puddles, the glass-lookey rocks
And the sea-plant glimmer green, they can’t help it.
They don’t know but we know, we know when the tide shifts
And starts coming in and you better get up quick
Because the thing is it ain’t the sand, it’s the mud
Beneath the sand and it sucks down your feet and that’s it man,
The tides rise eight feet and think of it, think of it;
They try to rescue them but they end up pulling
On limp arms. It’s like that. There’s a sign there.
Read the sign." Gas man told us this while pouring gas
From a faucet at the end of a rusting drum, then pouring
That gasoline into our car with a watering can.
It was five bucks to fill it, it was always five bucks.
He took the bills and without looking at me,
Walked over to the beat-up diner with the picture window,
Ordered two cans of beer and sat there staring out
At the flats. We drove on following the mud road
Around the last arm and that’s where the wind first hit;
We pulled up onto a rise and the old Datsun, bald-tired,
Groaned itself asleep while we rushed to get the tent up,
Slapping fly and tent poles we buckled in as it rolled
Like a giant log, like a runaway pack of horse,
White foam and splashing, a brown surge of sea,
Wrapping around our bare little knoll,
Dancing and laughing at all the terror it brought.
Frank Haberle is the author of two books: Shufflers (Flexible Press, Minneapolis, September 2021), a story of transients moving through minimum-wage jobs in the 1980s; and Downlanders (Flexible Press, November 2023), following five lost souls into a fictional wilderness. www.frankhaberle.com