shadow box

Sun’s in my hair
like a gilded gnat

flitting from strand
to strand, contagious.

How did I come to this
ghastly paradise?

It gnaws at my salts.
You arrive

to brace
and frame me.

A backdrop falls into place.
And the wind is siphoned out.

Color
stunned from our clothes and skin

signals the last act
of preservation.

Lodged between us
and the great plane of light:

a foreground of sandbars
affixed with keepsakes.