Beachhead

by Tom Sheehan

What is inordinate are the hippopotami of rocks near Hermit Island in Maine, thick-skulled, unblinking, refusing to mourn themselves. With a half-displaced surge out of sand, as if they've lost their breath in that terrible underworld of salt and constant push, their shoulders beam as smooth as agates from the iodized wash, gray pavilions  of armor plate massive in titillating breezes. Some are remote, half-seen, the unknown at reunions holding quiet places, waiting for recognition in a place in the pool, a niche in the sun. Only the sun enters these huge hearts and moves them, only the sun stirs the core where memory has upheaval. But in moonlight, when the cold year winds down and sand leaps to draw lace as intricate as six-point stitching, their broad backsides become mirrors and a handful of earthquake glows at rest.