After the bartender with bad eyes
cries last call at the Little Club,
we ramble down the boardwalk
to the bay. Beneath a full moon
the beach is the face of a strange planet,
the city lights a spaceship
that just landed. When he gets
drunk, my cousin talks
about ontology. He says
we build reality with our words.
The salt wind seals my shirt to my skin,
and I wrap my arm around his shoulders.
For a still moment, I am suspended,
and the ocean is breathing through me.
On the pier, vacationers blink tired visions
into the dark. I wonder if the beginning
of dying is a little like the beginning
of a dream, swimming blindly
from one world into another.

– kat kulke