These East Coach beaches sleep
under mists of sameness.
North to South.
An opiate syringe.

Zarathustra, dreaming, saw
an eternity of returning:

What begins as the rites freedom_
pot, condoms, kegs in trash cans_
in the end is willess recurrence,
a ritual of paperbacks and
sand toys in the trenchant morning.

And like videotape or prophesy,

the strand frays in each retelling.
So in time we forget what we sought
or how we came to doubt these
vague attempts at reclamation:

Sand retreats. Dunes crumble.
The houses fall to sea.

Yet 
we return
past the flatland soy fields,
down the pine-lined corridors.

We return
under the jumbled coastal signage, 
power lines and cable crisscross.

We return 
over the blazing steppes of sand
to towel plot, sand chair or beach tent.

We return
to find returning has changed us.

Barnacled, waterworn,
like something the sea has
thrown up upon its littered selvage_

so much like the old thing
but somehow unworkable_

We have been
rusted to postures of recline,
staring oceanward,

each face stamped,
one after the other, with the
same searching squint.