Steve Klepetar

RUNNING ON SAND

While I was slow on grass
or concrete (cemented to first
base, almost always "it," drain
on the relay team) I could run
like hell on sand. Maybe
it's my bones, hollow
as birds, a slight alteration
in my DNA, or maybe
the brand of peanut butter
my mother bought, a cheap
one from a lower shelf.
Maybe I got bitten
by a radioactive crab or
slept with a lost pearl in my bed
or from my cradle
saw my mother sucking clams.
Who knows?
But at the beach on hot
white sand, I kicked up storms --
you didn't want to run
behind me, trying to breathe
crushed fragments of a hundred
billion shells.
And on the wet gray sand
by ocean's edge, my footprints
welled and disappeared
like skywriting or summer
smoke. Spiderlegs they called
me, Sandrunner, Beachripper,
Shorelinelightning vanished,
sail on the horizon, blurring into fog.