All that remains of the pier are swollen stumps by the shore. She watches his figure outlined in dark blue, his sneakers wet with foam. She stands there and lets the waves arrive. In the dark, she can almost see the casino that once stood on stilts, suspended here on the invisible pier. The soaked slot machines and coins come in heaps, glistening under dark seaweed. He turns, and she thinks he smiles, the night muddling tenderness.
The hem of her jeans catches on a piece of pockmarked driftwood. She thinks of the women in hoop skirts swishing down the boardwalk, the stolen ivory canes tap dancing in step. The only restaurant in town with white tablecloths hung a picture of the pier above an old grand piano. Sometimes she slips through the glossed French doors just to get a glimpse of the scene, pretending grandeur in the sea of lobster bisque on silver trays and stiff chef’s coats.
Her mind latches to the pockets full of promise, emptied to billiards and blackjack tables. The flicker of doubt, casting its blue shadow across players’ fingertips as they pressed cues and cards to green felt. How was it any different than postmarking a letter in the mail or holding his face in her hands—the blind faith in forces that might interrupt the serendipity of reception.
The tides carried her thoughts to his wet laces. They both stood at the sharp breaks in the waves, their minds in distant rooms. His on the damp sheets and cracked open window, the view of that broken fountain across the street that gurgled with force every so often. Her bare arm outstretched on his chest, the spray of freckles and sun-bleached wisps of hair. The pang of yearning he got, bare and disarmed, her asleep in the tallgrass in a sunhat or painting her toes yellow on the rim of the bathtub. He felt her standing behind him now, wanted to duck through the crawlspace that was her brain, wear opera glasses to spy ideas idling through.
She imagines him in a three-piece suit and top hat, hair just gelled and cheeks slick with after-shave. Sauntering through the linoleum halls, heels clicking, wads of limp cash and so silent save the whir of the roulette wheel and hushed sideline advice.
“Where are you right now?” he asks her, finger gesturing at his temple.
She says something, the waves break. She tries to speak again as the froth recedes so far back into the night, bubbles dance off the soaked sand. He waits. She says, “With you.”
He smiles now, she can see clearly, no shadows warping distance. Her eye moves to the pier stump green with algae and time. Soon they both stare. His lighter flicks, the seconds grow slow, languorous.
“The pier’s still here, in a way. Just submerged and in pieces now—like these pilings, they extend farther out than we can see. Still here though,” he responds after a while.
“And that casino?” she turns her gaze on him.
“Yeah, yeah I think so. A shame that fire came, brought that whole place right down to the ocean.”
She nods, holds her hands out to him, palms tucked inside the sleeves of her sweater. He drops his cigarette to the ground, grinds his heel to the sand, takes her hands. The red sparks meet the sea foam, suffer then blend with the bright spume. He watches the darkened alchemy. She wonders why we swallow what sustains us.
Sofia Bagdade is a poet from New York City. Her work appears in One Art, The Shore, and Roi Fainéant Press, among other publications. More of her work can be found at sofiabagdade.weebly.com or on Instagram @sofiabagdade. She finds joy in smooth ink, orange light, and French Bulldogs.
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