Adult Children

Cape May, my beach of choice during childrearing.
Victorian mansions.
Abundant dunes.
Seductive walks on the promenade.
Lured here again this August by a siren.
Having missed the past summer due to lockdown.
Arriving with two grandkids and a daughter.
But, Delta variant also circulating in town.
Felling even dually vaccinated.
So, we treaded cautiously among the unmasked.
Help wanted signs everywhere.
Robotic checkers.
Motels withholding housekeeping.
Familiar shops shuttered, gone.
Some people oblivious to the danger.
Jogging, biking, sailing.
Sunbathing, minigolfing, barhopping.
Or maybe aware, but swatting worry away.
Like they would a pesky mosquito.
After all, this was vacation.
Seagulls, terns seemed unconcerned.
Sparrows, doves hopped about.
Dragonflies, not shy.
Even cicadas boasted mating conquests from the trees.
A golden sun squeezed out between ribbons of pink clouds.
A performance that turned everyone’s head.
At dusk, a nightlight moon swelled for scoff beds,
and those chasing ghost crabs.
Summer season brings a crush of visitors to Cape May.
Mostly lovers of sea, sand, salt.
Marsh plants, fowl, insects.
Nature preserves, fishing, swimming.
Joys of uninterrupted time with family, friends.
What could be better?
Normally nothing.
But in these days of anything but normal,
the wish to be home, isolated from humanity,
crosses my mind, multiplies, flies.
It’s an insistent akaakaakaaa, indistinguishable from
the wails of birds overhead.
The anchor that steadies me,
keeps me from rushing away,
are the giggles, hoots, hollers
of my grand boys at play.

Lynn Benjamin
August 11, 2021