Lament

A holiday gone wrong.
That morning, children’s
warm hands clasped in yours.
First walk on the beach,
such wonder. Bright
squeals of laughter,
wind whipping hair
across faces, salty
taste on lips. Gulls
lifting out of reach.
Everything a surprise.

Was there one
second to process?
To see sneaker wave
rise & rush to greet, to
lift small feet from
sand, curl tiny bodies
to the sea’s bosom?
You scrambled after them,
too late. One child’s body
later carried to shore
on currents as soft
and steady as
grandmother’s arms,
the other caught
in fretful fingers
of a muttering sea,
destined for horizons
far from your own, held
tenderly in deepest blue.
And you, left to wander
a new world, swim a
spring thaw
of grief.

Peggy Hammond’s recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, River & South Review, Jarfly Magazine, Roanoke Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, The Spotlong Review, Spire Light Journal, Straylight Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. She is a Best of the Net nominee, an Eric Hoffer Poetry Award nominee, and the author of The Fifth House Tilts (Kelsay Books, 2022). Learn more at https://peggyhammondpoetry.com/