Hot Rainbow Sand
Rufus Knuppel
Little ripples of heat fluttered
from the sand and
little Billy leaned against the wind.
With some air
he ballooned his swollen belly.
He stood there with his mouth open
and let the wind flow down his throat
over the ribs of his trachea
and oxygenate his unsoiled bronchi.
He stared down the horizon
and screamed.
His thin hair whipped and flailed
as his vocal chords
rubbed themselves violently.
The wind and heat threw
the sound waves
toward the sky.
The lobsters on his bathing suit
clung to the ridges of his
exposed hip bones.
He opened his eyes wide
and let the wind blow away
the wet film on his
cornea until he saw
the blurred colors
of the world.
(They were teal and white
and blue like the robin’s egg
his mother had shown him.)
He fell to his knees, and let the
rays of the sun
bear down on his back.
He pressed his ear
against the hot sand
and smiled. He heard
the ocean waves
tumble on the shore
and the grinding
of the tiny grains
and the thumping of his pulse
in his eardrum. He lay his back to the earth
and faced the sky.
He lifted up the sand in a fist
and let the tiny beads slip
from his palm and into the valley
of his chest and
the cavity of his naval.
The sand slithered away
and dripped down from his sides
when rolled over onto his stomach.
Some stuck to the
unrubbed milky white SPF 50 that
had been smeared
on his wriggly ribs and arms.
He saw the sand,
the pinks and blacks
and grays and whites,
and he wondered
how
these little broken bits of tectonic earth
had sifted from the depths of the sea
and found their way
to the creases in his little hand.
The beach umbrellas and
laughter and splashing fell away.
Billy and
his belly button and
the sand
were alone.