Kelly Grace Thomas

After the Beach, I Take Myself to Birthday Oysters

Delicious to swallow something so expensive.

Slurp the salty gray pillows and rosemary gin.

For years now, I’ve been searching for a truth

I could die to. How to dress for the weather

of my forties. Healing and health scares

and second acts. But still, I’ve learned to slip

into silence like a warm bath. Return to myself

like a tide. In Venice Beach, someone named

two Adirondack chairs and a slab of concrete,

Second Chance Park. There’s a 30-minute time

limit. Now my life’s likely half over, I have no more

use for lonely. Not with all the starfish and Redwoods.

The Pacific and her thousand blues. Not with this

tiny corner where anyone can start over.

Not with all these empty shells on my plate.

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