A Sunday at the Beach, 1938, and: A Summer Night on Long Island

A SUNDAY AT THE BEACH, 1938 / George Bogin Smell of soft warm tar under our bare feet as we pad from the car to the beach. Heat wrinkling the air rising from the pavement. Rows of white stucco bungalows with appliques of terra cotta diamonds. Sparrows pecking in the clumps of manure from the peddlers' horses. Ocean breath, surf sound, and gusts of Jewish cooking. The splintery boardwalk and a hotfoot through the blistering sand. The dependable blue of the sunny sea. Humanity, its kites and umbrellas. The clang in all sounds and voices. Girls, girls, girls in their bathing suits with their mesmerizing crotches. Salt chill at the ankles and the plunge into the breaker. The delicious pungent snorting tumble. A moment at the bottom clawing the sucking sand and the pebbles. Who am I at the bottom of the sea? I'm George Bogin, eighteen, and I scream with joy as I'm expelled into the sky above the Rockaways. The Missouri Review · 37 A SUMMER NIGHT ON LONG ISLAND / George Bogin It's Sunday morning, three o' clock, and I can't sleep. Nicotiana has been drifting into our bedroom for hours. A sports car charges up the hill like an exultant cricket while the crickets are with us too and the cha-chas from the temple. The glow of Manhattan is apparent from the window and I infer the roar of the ocean as I presume Mount Saint Helens muttering in the West. In France my daughter mourns her son stillborn in the winter. I want to believe in the brotherhood of man and the mothering future. I believe in the sisters and brothers of the good and the ubiquity of torturers. I brood over the empire avid to drop its Bomb again and I ponder the President as cataclysm of nature. I think of my daughter in Boston dreaming of perfecting her life. The music ends. The wedding guests shout their good-byes. The crickets yield to the mourning doves. My wife moans in her sleep and the ambiguous dawn breaks. 38 ¦ The Missouri Review ...