Tide

TIDE

Not abnormal for the family cars 

to greet the final pothole 

together,

the bills eying you from their little

plastic windows. The washing

machine growls a good-morning

goodbye and the downstairs toilet

hears the ruckus and wakens to remember

it too is overdue a leak. Though no dike  

can stop the tide long enough 

to get to the bottom of it, 

no one will deny things happen 

in waves. So when we didn't time it

right and something like hope

comes frothing to fill the shallow hollow

of the moat and flatten our sandcastles,

it makes a kind of ridiculous sense

 

that it wants the beach chair too 

and the you who happens to be 

sitting in it. And we're right, 

of course: we can never afford this

without sinking ourselves

hopelessly in more than debt.