Vista

Where the first rays of light hit the building, an inky black watertower floats up. The silhouette is probably more real than the original, at least in the early morning. The crispness of its sable outline against the red clay bricks seems sharp enough to cut the beams of sunlight filtering through the last wispy night clouds. The original is blurring. No one in the building can read where it says, "City of Myrtle Beach". No one can stand to look at it for more than a glance ― with our fiery star behind it ― and thus can't make out its true shape. But there's the shadow. There's always the faithful shadow.

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA

6 October 2010




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Stone

She placed the stone in her mouth. It had a salty, mineral flavor. She let it drop into her hand and rubbed the wet surface with the fingers of the other.

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA
5 October 2010




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Springmaid Beach Haiku

I jumped barefoot into the driver's seat of my old jeep. Sand on feet. Rusty floorboards.


Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA
4 October 2010








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Car Smell

My car smells faintly of fishbait I've carried from fishing spot to fishing spot up and down the Grand Strand, and like the crumbs of a thousand Chick-fil-A biscuits ― jumpers that escaped immediate destruction only to touch down in the oblivion below. It smells like the residue of a thousand different farts mixed with leather, sweat, oil and cheap cologne.


Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA

4 October 2010




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Kiss

Her breath smelled as smooth and pure as porcelain and her moist lips glimmered like new fallen rain on the grass.


Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA
4 October 2010






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All Saints' Parish

I come from a place of steamy blackwater swamps, of colonial sentinels with Spanish moss hanging from every bow, of bikinis, of sugar sand beaches and palm trees. A place where a man is as good as his word... unless he's sly enough to convince you otherwise. A land that's allergic to industry, that was once one of the richest colonies in the King's crown and that was later one of the wealthiest states of the first American union because of agricultural labor performed on the backs of and thanks to the technical genius of black African bondsmen.

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA
29 September 2010





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The Pier

Water feels like thick air with watercolor spots of fish and things. Some crawl, some fly. A shark is the kind of this realm, and the janitor too. He could eat just about anything he took a mind to dine on. But he's a lazy fellow and can only be bothered to clean up the scraps that he doesn't have to work for.

I tilted my rod so as to pass through the doorway out to the pier. Dragging my fishcart and my reluctant companion behind me, I moved toward the action.

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA
27 September 2010 (The Mullet Running)





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