Beach Day

Your anger needs to cool.

Especially as you curse the weight of

russets up the steps—Sisyphus

& his melon. A bag of 50 pounds is

not a deal. It took you half-an-hour,

your back’s been torqued by Thor.

The physician said that Lay’s will

never count as needed starch.

You despise his kill-joy voice.

Likely waters down his Pabst with

lemon grass.

The optometrist

kept you waiting

while your eyes were playing

Twister in the mall.

Everything past the ambit

teased like some

oasis. Even your Zoloft

shimmered, garnets beneath a clear

& rippling lake.

This wannabe Waikiki

can’t calm you down.

The ice cream jockey

showboats with your cone.

Her septuple scoops of fudge?

Teeter like an

Inukshuk in magnitude

10, topple like the losing plop of

Jenga. Go back to the end of the line. 

The queue on the 4^th of July’s

a sweaty python—straddling

a million meridians.

The Rapture will arrive

before they see your broiled

face. You’d make a crustacean

cringe. Bikinis flip the bird

whenever you peek. Your dad bod’s

out of place—like klezmer at a

skinhead soirée.

Lemons & lemonade? At least

you’ll catch the sunset. Strike that.

The nimbi swarm the ellipse

before the orange morphs to red.

E. coli’s just been

posted. So much for a midnight

swim. You’ll stand there till the dawn,

sand sifting through your

knuckles like a shitty, plastic

timer clocking moves; forever

upheaved by the oaf who cheats at

Scrabble, your tiles forming rage—

trumped at the end of the game—

your initials on the

shore before the surge.

Andreas Gripp

August 18, 2026

photograph: wkeithvan