by Jordan Green
A teenage couple, curled in a crescent in the damp grass,
blinked with heavy eyelids, searching for a glimpse of the sunrise.
His callused fingers trailed her cheekbone and swept sand
from her knotted curls. She could hear his gospel lullaby despite the waves
pounding on the shore. He whispered, “You are my only inspiration,”
and looked into her eyes, now brimming with silver tears.
He turned toward the horizon, feeling the sting of secret tears.
She slid her hand across the weeds to meet his hand; his fingernails were ingrained with sand
From that night’s adventure. “Let’s stay up and watch the sunrise!”
she’d suggested. Now, they found themselves on that familiar grassy
knoll, stuck in a world of deja vu: tasting the salt spray from the Hukilau waves,
dreaming of “what if’s,” and searching for a better source of inspiration.
Only she had the power to open his cage. Only she had the inspiration
to lure him into her golden arms, onto the clumps of grass,
and into her mending heart. She’d tasted handfuls of moonlit tears
since she turned sixteen. Suddenly, the clouds broke and the sunrise
spread corals, oranges, and pinks across the horizon, staining the sand,
already spotted from both her eyes and the choppy waves.
He never felt exhilarated without her, not even after riding the waves
near Goat Island. How could he stop her cheek-carving tears?
His brown arms pulled her closer in their nest of crab-grass
and he smelled her candied hair. Would he be uninspired
when she left? Hawaii had more to offer than surf and sand,
he’d learned in the past month: she and the sunrise.
She let her brown eyes flutter, picking through his sandy
mop of hair, pinching his biceps, and ignoring the breaking waves.
She saw a last bit of hopeful inspiration
in his reflecting eyes as she swiped at his potential tears.
Their legs entwined, rough and scratchy in the patch of grass
as they embraced with more passion, silhouetted in the sunrise.
The sky was blue now, their last summer sunrise
spent in moments of quiet and spontaneous inspiration
on both parts. They surrendered to silence as the waves
flattened the hills of creamy shore-sand.
“Let’s skip the goodbyes,” he said. “No more tears.”
Still, their bodies entangled in the dewy beach grass.
Meet me there in the grass for a final sunrise,
somewhere, where the sand is sweet and the waves
kind. Be my inspiration and kiss away my tears.
