If he trips, he gets back up. We run dunes
together, dashing through sunlit patches.
If we stand, our toes sizzle. Afternoons
laughter, reaching through branches to catch us.

Splashes on the shore. We dig trenches, make walls,
smash palms to make piles of who-knows-what.
The waves are too loud to hear all his calls,
his voice plinks off black gum and butternut.

On the sand hills, everything singes and shifts.
He peers off path for shade, spying an oak
angled perfectly for his leap. It lifts
him over his dad. Blond hair, wisps like smoke,

flapping downhill. Launching like light over sands,
over darkness that eddies the beach in bands.