Birthmark

Visitation, or How a Son Came to Resemble the Archangel

 Visitation, or How a Son Came to Resemble the Archangel The children dig, dulling new plastic tools, their backs to the surf never ceasing to surprise them. The father watches from a chair with only a few days left in it, the woven nylon having ripped almost everywhere but those few strands that must hold it all together. So much like the moment when he returns, out of breath. With their shoes & shirts scattered on the edge of the blanket, he knows, Even in their excitement, there is abandon. His oldest tilts a bucket of sand over a moat filling with water. What they worked on this day is falling apart. The walls slide down, the turrets they made with dripping sand begin to buckle, melting into the surf. They scream as they work to build it back up. The youngest, a shovel raised above his head like a sword, waves in the distance. The color of fire. ...