For nearly a week
LOVE stood on our beach
(the one we feel closest to),

and every morning I’d walk
out there and say, “Hi, LOVE!”
Often I’d see people pose

next to LOVE and point
their phones at themselves.
I offered to take photos

of more than a few couples
and one family of four who
happily took me up on it—

“We never have pictures of
all of us!” the mom said—
And I felt tingly, doing

my bit for LOVE, imagining
for a moment that the world
was built on tenderness,

not peopled entirely by
the stingy and the mean,
many of us on this little

stretch of sand delighting
in one man named Dennis
and his driftwood artistry.

On our last evening on
island, my love and I
walked to our beach to find

that LOVE had vanished,
been dismantled—poof!—
its parts strewn in the sand.

And to my surprise, I wept.
LOVE had survived six days
of high tides and rain.

Who would do such a thing?
And he who loves me
walked down the beach

ahead of me as I lingered
and tears fell and clouds
gathered minutes before rain.

“Look,” said the one who loves
me, pointing to the sand
where someone had traced

a heart with a steady finger.
And nearby, another.
“Love’s still here,” he said,

“just in another form.”
And when the rains came,
drenching us, we stood

and looked at the mountains
that rivet the attention
of so many who, like us,

feel attached to this beach,
clouds ringing the peaks
like silvery lei.

And we waited for the sunset
as love washed us clean
before sending us on our way,

as it always does.