MYRTLE BEACH

Why would breaking glass
be all I remember?

Why not the wind
ripping off the porte cochère
over-ending it down the beach?

Why not the music
electric
crackled
blasting from the transistor radio she carried in her other hand?

Why not the stingy candlelight
or the tide
that in confusing smashes
swore
“I will find you”?

None of that

Only a bottle breaking on the porcelain crapper by our heads
and the spoiled smell
strange slurred words neither of us knew
when her spit flung outward by the spin of the storm
and her wind and cloud chomped down on last light

Crammed
laid flat in the claw foot tub
we waited
for the hurricane to pass
and wondered
still wonder
what we had done
to conjure it



About Scott Warrender:
Scott Warrender is a teacher, playwright, pianist, and composer. He lives in Seattle and teaches at Cornish College for the Arts. His most recent work can be read at The Foundling Review, Lark's Fiction Magazine, Devilfish Review, and Stanley the Whale.