His eyes blinked as warm foam caressed his toes.
Back white with sand, the Bard rose dripping sweat.
“How came I here?” he groaned. “What folk are those
splashing in surf half-naked, gleaming wet?”
The blue sea glistened, flat as wordless breath.
He clutched his throat—where did the passion go,
the tide of tragedy that drowned Macbeth,
the storm-drenched sorcery of Prospero?
“Felicity,” he gasped, “you empty page!”,
a Lear in trunks, when—swoosh!—a volleyball
swooped down like fate. As actors die onstage
he dropped…
…and rewoke in his London stall.
Street voices mingled faintly in gray light.
He smoothed a sheet and dipped his pen to write.
