A beach house
with new shingles
around two windows
keeps watch with brindled eyes
at what the sea brings
each day.
Some days it’s just wave on wave,
like a furrowed brow.
Some days birds skim the rollers
like penitents walking the breadth
of a watery country.
The sea and the house
tell each other their moods in colors.
Weathered silver on brown means contentment.
A scrim of white rags tearing off
of slate grey mounded water
means I’m out of sorts right now.
New white on clapboard means
I’m trying to impress the neighbors.
A boiling blue black mountain of water
rolling up the beach means
I told you so.
