3 Hours at Cape Hatteras
written & performed by: John Hansen
My father pissed behind a dune 20 feet away,
he must have urine building cock-strength,
I thought, as the tide stole sand under burnt toes.
On the bank, I hand-blocked the last rays
minutely eroding – all eyes bathed
in hues of vermillion to purple royalty.
Twilight fell to pockets of bubbles
simmering on the surface of the sand,
foam-topped waves rushing back to sea.
My mother dashed to a cluster of froth
digging clumps of beach with her hands,
two fingers under, a thumb on top,
she held a clattering decapod up to the air.
Her curiosity still prodigious at sixty,
an offer of sculling oars to powerful chelipeds
moving erratically but nipping nothing –
handed to me – a Chesapeake blue crab
frantically hog wriggling out of my grasp.
Cackling in-between sips of pale beer,
my father still atop the dune he pissed behind,
raising his hands, praying in strange tongues.
- 3 Hours at Cape Hatteras - April 27, 2021
