Beach Rose

(Cape Cod, near Chatham)

Pitiless end-of-August days.
Dune grass and sand swells
stretch back from the sea,
bleached in light.

Voices of young girls mix in the wind,
lost in wave clamor and bird cry;
their steps,
even as they dance,
wash clean from the water’s edge.

Intrepid
only the beach rose:
its scatter of pendant bells
enameled, red, nut-hard;
its leaves leather;
its blooms of crepe
incongruous, pink.