Cold Sand

The winter was sort of a metal grey, the beach deserted, the ocean foaming with hammer like green January waves. As he walked the wind picked him up from time to time and tossed him forward by his sail-like spread coat.

Now and then there was a girl, miles down south, a girl in a heavy sweater and heavy scarf, watching as the grey-greens changed from moment to moment to cold icy pink on the faraway Brooklyn side.

They circled each other, slowdanced in the sand, and they talked, and they shouted through the wind and the hammering waves. She was an actress, kind of dating, kind of alone, she was an actress, living off her boyfriend, living in his beach house, a grand house, fifty two windows, yards, pool, guesthouse.

"He is a banker, rather old," she said.

She was young, freckled in the face, heavy sweater, heavy scarf. He didn't say anything just looked at her straight, wondering green red-head eyes.

"Sweet old, my sweet old man."

He turned after looking at her straight again, turned after listening to her and to the wind and headed back North towards his friend's beach-house, in the wind his barely audible wind-clobbered goodby.

"Well, I'll just totter around for a while," she replied, "he is not home yet," she cried, "always always always away."

He left nonetheless, sort of cold, sort of wanting to hurt her, and she tottered and fell and tottered and rolled and crawled in the sand, and crawled, in lonely one woman romance, towards the house, the grand house with the pool, with the fifty two empty rooms. "I'm in love with a banker," she said, "sweet old man, tottering and rolling in the sand, cold sharp and shiny little specks, practicing my lines."