A cardiologist bought a house
perched atop a dune
precariously located —
he paid cash.
A few years later
the house toppled in a storm.
The cottage colony on Ocean Drive
moves close to the position of danger.
The dunes are slipping away faster.
Each year the sea encroaches
the dunes lose more of themselves
tumble to the shoreline —
bringing shards of decking, window frames,
chunks of asphalt, scrub trees that fall
still rooted in the sand where they grew
tilted towards the incoming waves in surrender.
Rocks poke out of the dune-hills as if
a giant carved them with an outsize knife
tossed those boulders onto the beach.
I accelerate my beach walk to a run
fearing an avalanche.
The doctor must be long dead by now,
his children likely grandparents.
The warming sea pounds away
smoothing pebbles and rocks
rushing toward the dunes
commanding them to yield.
Lynne Viti, a summer resident of Wellfleet, is the poet laureate of Westwood. Her most recent collection is The Walk to Cefalù (Cornerstone Press, 2022).
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