We stretched our cursive letters across the lines
As if we stretched some yarn across a loom;
We had such care for every curve and volute,
Out of a mix of pride and requirement.
Our books were cozy in their cubby holes
And after the year was done all would be back.
But for some half-gale that changed our faces,
Just a little bit.

Late in those days:
Muscle thickened on my boyish shoulder,
Awkwardly, unforeseen and uncalled for;
When I slumped from such strains and sighed,
The stools in the art room righted my posture.
I looked at the back of the girl in front of me
Past the clay and clutter on the table,
And she was learning her shape
And the summer was coming into being.
Her pink shirt was indented at the waist,
Yet she, still, earthy: pure and unadorned.
But for some half-gale that changed her body,
Just a little bit.

There were Christmas parties,
When construction paper colored in
Extravagance would toss around, and the nights
Were dark but felt so safe. At that late time
Of year, when snow was loved by red bulbs
Who wore caps of white along the eaves.
Their red glow tended to my coat and to my hair,
And I tossed reindeer dust through the safe, cold holy air—
I believed in every glitter.
But for some half-gale that changed my eyes,
Making them a little bitter.

Even as those days were slipping out of being,
Reality had no impropriety.
It conformed, as though a turret of sand,
To the cupping and molding of my hand.
We traced our names onto the sand
As though we traced a treasure map,
Leading to the final flourishes of letter’s tails,
Where a girl made a tiara out of white shells.
One day as the waves
Were trending and tapering into shore
Like blue cloth sown with threads of white:
Our chests were raw and knotty.
The sun was going down and we watched
A freighter crawl almost movementless across the sill of water
Far away, slowly admitting itself into the clouds;
We were waterlogged and happily coughing,
But for some half-gale that kicked up the waves
And licked off the nominal furrows that had claimed the sand.
But the waves learned all our names as the summer was going out of being.

About the Author

David Albert Solberg is a freshman art history major at Kent State University.While his poems have not been published before, he has won first place in the Gannon University High School Poetry Contest twice, once in 2010 and the other in 2013. He grew up in Edinboro, Pennsylvania.

Contents

The Sand's Script

About the Author