Every Day, at Five A.M.
written by: William Gratton
She’d wake to the gulls,
an empty, gurgling fish tank,
cold ocean air,
five a.m.
She’d shiver into her dressing gown,
slide a chair to the kitchen door,
undo the latch,
and walk down the grey beach.
A lady jogged in the shallows—
glanced at the girl,
never waved.
The girl sits like a washed-up seashell,
salt spray tautening her cheeks
against her skull,
turning her hair into straw.
She gazes at the horizon as if it shouldn’t be there.
She’d write her name in the sand
with a piece of driftwood.
The next day
It would be gone.
Eventually, she was embarrassed it ever mystified her;
it was only the water
smoothing the beach,
consuming her.
One day the girl doesn’t appear.
The seagulls continue screaming.
That lady continues jogging.
other seashells get deposited on shore.
Never again, in the future of the world,
will her name be written in the sand.
and nobody,
nothing,
will miss it.
- Every Day, at Five A.M. - December 10, 2025
