Michael T. Young

Watching a Beach House Be Pulled into the Ocean

 

It’s not the same as seeing our kid’s sandcastles eroded,
      one detail at a time bleeding into lumps. And this is surprising—
            how much stays together, how much the house

remains a house, even as the stilts under it collapse.
      It’s as if to prove Eliot right about the way the world ends,
            that things linger on, haunting the borders, the edges

where one world falls into another. They beckon us
      to look through their windows, so strangely clear
            and uncracked, to stand on one of its two balconies,

or enter its kitchen where, I imagine, a dish clatters
      in the sink, forgotten by the last owners,
            or a sheet covers an abandoned bed, still dry,

still waiting for anyone to snuggle in for the long night.
      All of it holds together within its dark shingles
            and under its dark roof, the whole of it floating

out into the waves’ greedy grasping hands, persisting
      in its slow drift, like someone who walks
            to the gallows still believing in his cause.


Michael T. Young’s third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award. His previous collections are The Beautiful Moment of Being Lost and Transcriptions of Daylight. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His chapbook, Living in the Counterpoint, received the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award. His poetry has been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac. It has also appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals including Pinyon, One Art, Talking River Review, and Vox Populi.