Key West Madonna

The girl in blue upon the sand intrigues me like this southern land. She always smiles as if to say that I could speak but words betray. She watches casually her child and notices my sometimes smile, then turns to check and be assured to find her view is not obscured but playing idly on the sand, a tiny shell held tight in hand. I watched her from the farther side struck dumb before the southern tide and might have spoke only to say that she was beautiful today. But to the sea, beneath the foam, I nourished other thoughts of home, a longing to be small and free; the tide lets go and leaves me be.