The words thrummed through my head as I walked along the beach. The waves whispered in, tickled my ankles, frizzled in fast retreat. My plastic shopping bag brimmed with garbage that I’d been collecting: a handful of frayed blue nylon rope, a Barbie shoe, four razors, a battered eye-glass case, Styrofoam cups, a tattered yellow note-pad, beer bottles that had stood three in a row, like sentries guarding a vanished castle.
“Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me”
The sun was setting and I was conspicuously alone. An orange light up ahead caught my eye. It flickered, then disappeared. I decided to investigate, but the garbage bag was making my arm ache, the handle was tight as it wound around my wrist, and something noxious was leaking from one of the bottles.
I stashed the bag in the dune grass, marking the spot with a piece of blue rope.
Back at the cottage, my boyfriend Eric was probably growing impatient, wondering when I’d return and start dinner. But the orange light flickered again, then held steady as I made progress towards it. The wind whipped my hair about my head. I regretted not pinning it up.
I came upon a teenager, his hair tangled and windblown, too, sitting cross-legged on the dampening sand, something small in his hands. I realized he had been toying with a mirror shard, capturing the setting sun’s reflection. Training it on me.
“Hey,” I said. He looked up, eyes blue and glassy. “I noticed the light, from way down the beach. It’s pretty intense.”
“Yeah, well, I found this mirror in the sand.” His voice was soft, lovely.
“Do you live around here?”
“I guess you could say that,” he said, gesturing towards the dunes.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, “you kind of look hungry.” His cheeks were sunken, his wrists so thin, delicate.
“I’ve got a chunk of olive bread here, in my sweatshirt. I was going to have a snack on the beach, but I got to walking and collecting trash and now I need to hurry back. Want it?”
“Okay, thanks,” he smiled, his teeth bright. “Take this. I don’t like getting and not giving.” He held out the mirror as I gave him the bread. Our hands touched. His skin was rough but warm. A tiny bandage failed to cover a nasty-looking wound on his left wrist. “It’s kind of broken. Add it to your garbage collection if you want.”
“Thanks,” I said, but he’d already hunkered into the bread.
In my clutch the shard emanated heat, the sun’s radiance, his radiance. I found my bag, and was about to drop the mirror in when I noticed writing on the back, “To Emma. May you lift your lamp always.”
As I neared our cottage in the dark, I saw Eric, illuminated in the fluorescent kitchen light, looking out the window. The mirror was still warm in my pocket.
