Hug

Written by Caycey Pound
Art by Andrew Shelley

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Angel oak limbs brush the ground
in heavy swooping curves.
The ground is broken
oyster shells. It’s eerily golden here
beside where we sat once. All the branches
remind me of your arms,
brushing just past mine.

There’s a part of me that sees
a paradise here, mindless
dog walkers surrounded,
sunshine peeking through leaves, only droplets
of the tide coming in, allowing us all to forget
the oceanview just outside the park: the waves
so closely, crashing, just beyond loose limbs.

Here, I keep coming back to
the idea that nothing can reduce you,
how I never expected
the hardest part to be tense:
to say you like or liked, to say you are or were.