3 Hours at Cape Hatteras - John Hansen

My father pissed behind a dune 20 feet away,
he must have urine building cock-strength,
I thought, as the tide stole sand under burnt toes.

On the bank, I hand-blocked the last rays
minutely eroding – all eyes bathed
in hues of vermillion to purple royalty.

Twilight fell to pockets of bubbles
simmering on the surface of the sand,
foam-topped waves rushing back to sea.

My mother dashed to a cluster of froth
digging clumps of beach with her hands,
two fingers under, a thumb on top,

she held a clattering decapod up to the air.
Her curiosity still prodigious at sixty,
an offer of sculling oars to powerful chelipeds

moving erratically but nipping nothing –
handed to me – a Chesapeake blue crab
frantically hog wriggling out of my grasp.

Cackling in-between sips of pale beer,
my father still atop the dune he pissed behind,
raising his hands, praying in strange tongues.

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John Hansen received a BA in English from the University of Iowa and MA in English Literature from Oklahoma State University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Summerset Review, One Sentence Poems, The Drabble, Verse-Virtual, Eunoia Review, Amethyst Review, and others. He is English Faculty at Mohave Community College in Arizona.
Read more at johnphansen.com