Resort

by Trinity Coster-Dimo

The man in the hotel room only
moves to smoke a cigarette on the balcony his view
concrete, cars, solitary seagull.
The child steps out of the lobby, inhaling ocean air but
is something burning?
The man flicks his cigarette butt
it lands
on her pink sunglasses, ricocheting and hitting
the ground.
She looks up at her father
and he is already back inside.

The beach is too cold for tourists in May,
but it is cheaper, so here she is.
She waits beneath the jetty
to be looked for by somebody else
other than her reflection in the rockpools.
Eventually, she relents and goes
alike incoming tide
clumsy on the beachrock stone
stone face beneath her sunglasses
that stay on even though it is dusk.
In the distance, the souvenir store shuts early.

On the esplanade a pop-up petting zoo
is boxed by fences
out of place goats against the waves.
She hands a coin over to the worker and says
this is all that I have
as he pockets it.
She pets a rabbit with her rockpool brine hands and it bites.
The buck-toothed bruise remains for two weeks.